
Merciless Monster of the Deep. 
The murderous German submarine sighting its prey. Sinking under water it 
launched the fatal torpedo and its helpless victim, crowded with innocent men, 
women and children, was doomed. 



s 



OF THE GREAT WAR 

Including the Tragic Destruction of the Lusitania 



A NEW KIND OF WARFARE 

COMPRISING 

The Desolation of Belgium, the Sacking of Louvain, the Shelling of 

Defenseless Cities, the Wanton Destruction of Cathedrals and Works of 

Art, the Horrors of Bomb Dropping 

VIVIDLY PORTRAYING 

The Grim Awfulness of this Greatest of All Wars Fought on Land and Sea, in 

the Air and Under the Waves, Leaving in Its Wake a Dreadful Trail of 

Famine and Pestilence 



By LOGAN MARSHALL 

Author of "The Sinking of the Titanic," "Myths and 
Legends of All Nations," etc. 

With Special Chapters by 

SIR GILBERT PARKER VANCE THOMPSON 

Author of "The Right of Way" Author of "Spinners of Life" 

PHILIP GIBBS 

^ Author of "The Street of Adventure," Special 

Correspondent on The London Daily Chronicle. 



3(Utt0lratrJi 



x^^^ 



Copyright 1915 
By L. T. MYERS 



SEP 1 1 1915 

©CI,A411438 



INTRODUCTION 

''Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of 
these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." — Jesus of 
Nazareth 

THE SIGHT of all Europe engaged in the most terrific 
conflict in the history of mankind is a heartrending 
spectacle. On the east, on the south and on the 
west the blood-lust leaders have flung their deluded 
millions upon unbending lines of steel, martjrrs to the 
glorification of Mars. 

We see millions of men taken from their homes, their 
shops and their factories; we see them equipped and 
organized and mobilized for the express purpose of 
devastating the homes of other men; we see them 
making wreckage of property; we see them wasting, 
with fire and sword, the accumulated efforts of genera- 
tions in the field of things material; we see the com- 
merce of the world brought to a standstill, all its 
transportation systems interrupted, and, still worse, the 
amenities of life so placed in jeopardy for long genera- 
tions to come that the progress of the world is halted, 
its material and physical progress turned to retrogres- 
sion. 

" hiasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of 
these my brethren, ye have done it unto meP' 

But this is not the worst. We see myriads of men 
banded together to practice open violation of the very 

3 



INTRODUCTION 



fundamental tenets of humanity; we see the worst 
passions of mankind, murder, theft, hist, arson, 
pillage — ail the baser possibilities of human nature — 
coming to the surface. Outside of the natural killing 
of war, hundreds of men have been murdered, often 
with incidents of the most revolting brutality; children 
have been slaughtered; women have been outraged, 
killed and shamefully mutilated. And this we see 
among peoples who have no possible cause for personal 
quarrel. 

"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of 
these my brethren, ye have done it unto meF' 

To all human beings of normal mentality it must 
have seemed that the destruction of the Lusitania 
marked the apex of horror. There is, indeed, nothing 
in modern history — nothing, at least, since the Black 
Hole of Calcutta and some of the indescriba.ble atrocities 
of Kurdish fanatics — to supplj' the mind with a vantage 
ground from which to measure the causeless and profit- 
less savager}/- of this black deed of murder. 

To talk of '^warning" having been given on the day 
the Lusitania sailed is puerile. So does the Black Hand 
send its warnings. So does Jack the Ripper write his 
defiant letters to the police. Nothing of this prevents 
us from regarding such miscreants as wild beasts, 
against whom society has to defend itself at all hazards. 

There are many reasons but not a single excuse for 
the war. When a man, or a nation, wants what a 
rival holds and makes a violent effort to enter into 
possession thereof, right and conscience and duty before 
God and to one's neighbor are forgotten in the struggle, 

■4 



INTEODUCTION 



Man reverts to the brute. Loose rein is given to 
passion, and the worst appears. The fair edifice of 
sobriety and amity and just dealing between man and 
man, upreared by civilization in centuries of travail, 
is rent asunder, stone from stone. The inner shrine 
of the inalienable sense of human brotherhood is 
profaned. One cannot reconcile with any program for 
the lasting accomplishment of good and the victory 
of the truth, this fever of murder on a grand scale, 
this insensate madness of pillage and slaughter that 
goes from alarum and counter-alarum to overt acts 
of fiendish and sickening brutality, palliated because 
they are done by anonymous thousands instead of by 
one man who can be named. 

''Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of 
these my brethren, ye have done it unto meP^ 

It is civilization that is being shot down by machine 
guns in Europe. That great German host is not made 
up of mercenaries, nor of the type of men that at one 
time composed armies. There are Ehrlichs serving as 
privates in the ranks and in the French corps are 
Rostands. A bullet does not kill a man; it destroys 
a generation of learning, annihilates the mentality 
which was about to be humanity's instrument in 
unearthing another of nature's secrets. The very 
vehicles of progress are the victims. It will take years 
to train their equals, decades perhaps to reproduce 
the intelligence that v/as ripe to do its work. The 
chances of the acquisition of knowledge are being 
sacrificed. Far m^ore than half of the learning on which 
the world depends for progress is turned from labora- 

5 



INTRODUCTION 



tories and workshops into the destructive arenas of 
battle. 

It is indeed a war against civilization. The person- 
nel of the armies makes it so. Every battle is the 
sacrifice of human assets that cannot be replaced. 
That is the real tragedy of this stupendous conflict. 

Perhaps it is better that the inevitable has come so 
soon. The burden of preparation was beginning to 
stagger Europe. There may emerge from the whirlpool 
new dynasties, new methods, new purposes. This may 
be the furnace necessary to purge humanity of its 
brutal perspective. The French Revolution gave an 
impulse to democracy which it has never lost. This 
conflict may teach men the folly of d3ang for trade or 
avarice. But whatever it does, it is not too much to 
hope that the capital and energy of humanity will 
become again manifest in justice and moral achieve- 
ment, until the place of a nation on the map becomes 
absolutely subordinate to the place it occupies in the 
uplift of humanity. 



CONTENTS 

* PAGE 

Introduction 3 

I. The Supreme Crime Against Civilization: 

The Tragic Destruction of the Lusitania. 9 
II. The Heroes of the Lusitania and Their 

Heroism 22 

III. Soul-Stirring Stobies of Survivors of the 

Lusitania 34 

IV. A Canadian's Account of the Lusitania 

Horror 50 

V. The Plot Against the Rescue Ships 55 

VI, British Jury Finds EIaiser a Murderer 61 

VII. The World-Wide Indictment of Germany 

FOR the Lusitania Atrocity 69 

VIII. America's Protest Against Uncivilized War- 
fare 81 

IX. The German Defense for the Destruction 

of the Lusitania 91 

X. Swift Reversal to Barbarism 101 

By Vance Thompson, American Author and 
Journalist. 

XL Belgium's Bitter Need 112 

By Su- Gilbert Parker, M.P., British Novelist. 
XII. James Bryce's Pv^eport on Systematic Mas- 
sacre in Belgium 121 

XIII. A Belgian Boy's Story of the Ruin of 

Aerschot 137 

XIV. The Unspeakable Atrocities of "Civilized 

Warfare " 144. 

7 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Destroying the Priceless Monuments of 

Civilization 159 

Wanton Destruction of the Beautiful 

Cathedral of Rheims 169 

Canadians' Glorious Feat at Langemarck. 177 
Pitiful Flight of a Million Women 195 

By Philip Gibbs, English Author and Jour- 
nalist. 

Facing Death in the Trenches 207 

A Vivid Picture of War 221 

Harrowing Scenes Along the Battle Lines. 228 
What the Men in the Trenches Write Home. 234 

Bombarding Undefended Cities 240 

Germany's Fatal War Zone 243 

Multitudinous Tragedies at Sea 251 

How "Neutral" Waters Are Violated 255 

The Terrible Distress of Poland 259 

The Ghastly Havoc Wrought by the 

Air-Demons 267 

The Deadly Submarine and Its Stealthy 

Destruction 273 

The Terrible Work of Artillery in War. . 280 
Wholesale Slaughter by Poisonous Gases . . 286 
"Usages of War on Land": The Official 

German Manual 294 

The Sacrifice of the Horse in Warfare . . 299 
Scourges That Follow in the Wake of 

Battle .303 

War's Repair Shop: Caring for the Wounded. 308 
What Will the Horrors and Atrocities of 

the Great War Lead to? 314 



XV. 

XVI. 

XVII. 
XVIII. 



XIX. 

XX. 
XXI. 

XXII. 

XXIII. 

XXIV. 

XXV. 

XXVI. 

XXVII. 

XXVIII. 

XXIX. 

XXX. 

XXXI. 

XXXII. 

XXXIII. 
XXXIV. 

XXXV. 

XXXVI. 



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The German Submarine and How it Works. 
Upper left picture shows a section at center of the vesseh Upper 
right view shows the submarine at the surface with two torpedo tubes 
visible at the stern. The large picture illustrates how this monster attacks 
a vessel like the Lusitania by launching a torpedo beneath the water while 
securing its observation through the periscope, just above the waves. 



CHAPTER I 

THE SUPREME CRIME AGAINST CIVILI- 
ZATION: THE TRAGIC DESTRUCTION 

OF THE LUSITANIA 

an unprecedented crime against humanity 

the lusitania: built for safety germany's 

announced intention to sink the vessel 

liner's speed increased as danger NEARED — 

submarine's PERISCOPE DIPS UNDER SURFACE 

PASSENGERS OVERCOME BY POISONOUS FUMES 

BOAT CAPSIZES WITH WOMEN AND CHILDREN 

HUNDREDS JUMP INTO THE SEA THE LUSITANIA 

GOES TO HER DOOM INTERVIEW WITH CAPTAIN 

TURNER. 

NO THINKING man — whether he beheves or disbe- 
heves in war — expects to have war without the horrors 
and atrocities which accompany it. That "war is 
hell" is as true now as when General Sherman so 
pronounced it. It seems, indeed, to be truer today. 
And yet we have always thought — perhaps because 
we hoped — that there was a limit at which even war, 
with all its lust of blood, with all its passion of hatred, 
with all its devilish zest for efficiency in the destruction 
of human life, would stop. 

Now we know that there is no limit at which the 
makers of war, in their frenzy to pile horror on horror, 
and atrocity on atrocity, mil stop. We have seen 
a aatiom despoiled and raped because it resisted an 

9 



CRIME AGAINST CIVILIZATION 

invader, and we said that was war. But now out of 
the sun-lit waves has come a venomous instrument 
of destruction, and without warning, without respite 
for escape, has sent headlong to the bottom of the 
everlasting sea more than a thousand unarmed, unre- 
sisting, peace-bent men, women and children — even 
babes in arms. So the Lusitania was sunk. It may 
be war, but it is something incalculably more sobering 
than merely that. It is the difference between assas- 
sination and massacre. It is war's supreme crime 
against civilization. 

AN UNPEECEDENTED CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY 

The horror of the deadly assault on the Lusitania 
does not lessen as the first shock of the disaster recedes 
into the past. The world is aghast. It had not taken 
the German threat at full value; it did not believe 
that any civilized nation would be so wanton in its 
lust and passion of war as to count a thousand non- 
combatant lives a mere unfortunate incidental of the 
carnage. 

Nothing that can be said in mitigation of the destruc- 
tion of the Lusitania can alter the fact that an outrage 
unknown heretofore in the warfare of civilized nations 
has been committed. Regardless of the technicahties 
which may be offered as a defense in international 
law, there are rights which must be asserted, must be 
defended and maintained. If international law can be 
torn to shreds and converted into scrap paper to serve 
the necessities of war, its obstructive letter can be 
disregarded when it is necessary to serve the rights of 
humanity. 
10 



CRIME AGAINST CIVILIZATION 




Tee Teitoiph of Hate. 



11 



CRIME AGAINST CIVILIZATION 

THE lusitania: built for '^safety" 

The irony of the sitAiation lies in the fact that from 
the ghastly experience of great marine disasters the 
Lusitania was evolved as a vessel that was ''safe." 
No such calamity as the attack of a torpedo was fore- 
seen by the builders of the giant ship, and yet, even 
after the outbreak of the European war, and when 
upon the eve of her last voyage the warning came 
that an attempt would be made to torpedo the Lusi- 
tania, her owners confidently assured the world that 
the ship was safe because her great speed would enable 
her to outstrip any submarine ever built. 

Limitation of language makes adequate word descrip- 
tion of this mammoth Cunarder impossible. The 
following figures shovf its immense dimensions : Length, 
790 feet; breadth, 88 feet; depth, to boat deck, SO feet; 
draught, fully loaded, 37 feet, 6 inches; displacement on 
load line, 45,000 tons; height to top of funnels, 155 
feet; height to mastheads, 216 feet. The hull below 
draught line v»ras divided into 175 water-tight compart- 
ments, which made it — so the owners claimed — 
''unsinkable." With complete safety device equip- 
ment, including wireless telegraph, Mundy-Gray 
improved method of submarine signaling, and with 
officers and crew all trained and reliable men, the 
Lusitania was acclaimed as being unexcelled from a 
standpoint of safety, as in all other respects. 

Size, however, was its least remarkable feature. 
The ship was propelled by four screws rotated by 
turbine engines of 68,000 horse-power, capable of 
developing a sea speed of more than twenty-five knots 
per hour regardless of weather conditions, and of 
12 



CHIME AGAINST CIVILIZATION 

maintaining without driving a schedule with the 
regularity of a railroad train, and thus establishing 
its right to the title of "the fastest ocean greyhound." 

Germany's announced intention to sink the 

VESSEL 

On Saturday May 1, 1915, the day on which the 
Cunard liner Lusitania, carrying 2,000 passengers and 
crew, sailed from New York for Liverpool, the following 
advertisement, over the name of the Imperial German 
Embassy, was published in the kading ne¥/spap@rs of 
the ¥nited States: 

NOTICE! 

TRAVELERS intending to embark on the 
Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of 
war exists between Germany and her allies 
and Great Britain and her allies; that the 
zone of war includes the v/aters adjacent to 
the British Isles; that, in accordance with 
formal notice given by the Imperial German 
Government, vessels flying the flag of Great 
Britain, or of any of her allies, are liable to 
destruction in those waters and that travelers 
sailing in the war zone on ships of Great Britain 
or her allies do so at their own risk. 

IMPERIAL GERMAN EMBASSY. 
Washington, D. C, April 22, 1915. 

The advertisement was commented upon by the 
passengers of the Lusitania, but it did not cause any 
of them to cancel their booking's. No one took the 

13 



CRIME AGAINST CIVILIZATION 

matter seriously. It was not conceivable that even 
the German military lords could seriously plot so 
dastardly an attack on non-combatants. 

When the attention of Captain W. T. Turner, 
commander of the Lusitania, was called to the warning, 
he laughed and said: ''It doesn't seem as if they had 
scared many people from going on the ship by the 
looks of the passenger list." 

Agents of the Cunard Line said there was no truth in 
reports that several prominent passengers had received 
anonymous telegrams warning them not to sail on 
the Lusitania. Charles T. Bowring, president of the 
St. George's Society, who was a passenger, said that 
it was a siUy performance for the German Embassy 
to do. 

Charles Klein, the American playwright, said he was 
going to devote his time on the voyage to thinking of 
his new play, ''Potash and Perlmutter in Society," 
and would not have time to worry about trifles. 

Alfred G. Vanderbilt was one of the last to go on 
board. 

Elbert Hubbard, publisher of the Philistine, who 
sailed with his wife, said he believed the German 
Emperor had ordered the advertisement to be placed 
in the newspapers, and added jokingly that if he was 
on board the liner when she was torpedoed, he would 
be able to do the Kaiser justice in the Philistine. 

The early days of the voyage were unmarked by 
incidents other than those which have interested ocean 
passengers on countless previous trips, and little 
apprehension was felt by those on the Lusitania of the 
fate which lay ahead of the vessel. 
14 



CRIME AGAINST CIVILIZATION 

The ship was proceeding at a moderate speed, 
on Friday, May 7, when she passed Fastnet Light, off 
Cape Clear, the extreme southwesterly point of Ireland 
that is first sighted by east-bound liners. Captain 
Turner was on the bridge, with his staff captain and 
other officers, maintaining a close lookout. Fastnet 
left behind, the Lusitania's course was brought closer 
to shore, probably within twelve miles of the rock- 
bound coast. 

liner's speed increased as danger neared 

Her speed was also increased to twenty knots or 
more, according to the more observant passengers, 
and some declare that she worked a sort of zigzag 
course, plainly ready to shift her helm whenever danger 
should appear. Captain Turner, it is known, was 
watching closely for any evidence of submarines. 

One of the; passengers. Dr. Daniel Moore, of Yankton, 
S. D., declared that before he went downstairs to 
luncheon shortly after one o'clock he and others with 
him noticed, through a pair of marine glasses, a curious 
object in the sea, possibly two miles or more away. 
What it was he could not determine, but he jokingly 
referred to it later at luncheon as a submarine. 

Wliile the first cabin passengers were chatting over 
their coffee cups they felt the ship give a great leap 
forward. Full speed ahead had suddenly been signaled 
from the bridge. This was a few minutes after two 
o'clock, and just about the time that Ellison Myers, 
of Stratford, Ontario, a boy on his way to join the 
British Navy, noticed the periscope of a submarine 
about a mile away to starboard. Myers and his 

15 



CRIME AGAINST CIVILIZATION 

companions saw Captain Turner hurriedly give orders 
to the helmsman and ring for full speed to the engine 
room. 

The Lusitania began to swerve to starboard, heading 
for the submarine, but before she could really answer 
her helm a torpedo was flashing through the water 
toward her at express speed. Myers and his compan- 
ions, like many others of the passengers, saw the white 
wake of the torpedo and its metal casing gleaming in 
the bright sunlight. The weather was ideal, Hght 
winds and a clear sky making the surface of the ocean as 
calm and smooth as could be wished by any traveler. 

submarine's periscope dips under surface 

The torpedo came on, aimed apparently at the bow 
of the ship, but nicely calculated to hit her amidships. 
Before its wake was seen the periscope of the submarine 
had vanished beneath the surface. 

In far less time than it takes to tell, the torpedo had 
crashed into the Lusitania's starboard side, just abaft 
the first funnel, and exploded with a dull boom in the 
forward stoke-hole. 

Captain Turner at once ordered the helm put over 
and the prow of the ship headed for land, in the hope 
that she might strike shallow water while still under 
way. The boats were ordered out, and the signals 
caUing the boat crews to their stations were flashed 
everywhere through the vessel. 

Several of the life-boats were already swung out, 
according to some survivors, there having been a life- 
saving drill earlier in the day before the ship spoke 
Fastnet Light. 
16 



CRIME AGAINST CIVILIZATION 

Down in the dining saloon the passengers felt the 
ship reel from the shock of the explosion and many were 
hurled from their chairs. Before they could recover 
themselves, another explosion occurred. There is a 
difference of opinion as to the number of torpedoes 
fired. Some say there were two; otherc say only one 
torpedo struck the vessel, and that the second ex- 
plosion was internal. 

PASSENGERS OVERCOME BY POISONOUS FUMES 

In any event, the passengers now realized their 
danger. The ship, torn almost apart, was filled with 
fumes and smoke, the decks were covered with debris 
that fell from the sky, and the great Lusitania began 
to list quickly to starboard. Before the passengers 
below decks could make their way above, the decks 
were beginning to slant ominously, and the air was 
filled with the cries of terrified men and women, some 
of them already injured by being hurled against the 
sides of the saloons. Many passengers were stricken 
unconscious by the smoke and fumes from the exploding 
torpedoes. 

The stewards and stewardesses, recognising the too 
evident signs of a sinking ship, rushed about urging 
and helping the passengers to put on life-belts, of which 
more than 3,000 were aboard. 

On the boat deck attempts were being made to 
lower the life-boats, but several causes combined to 
impede the efforts of the crev/ in this direction. The 
port side of the vessel was already so far up that the 
boats on that side were quite useless, and as ..the star- 
board boats w@re lowered the plunging vessel — she was 

2 17 



CRIME AGAINST CIVILIZATION 

stiU under headway, for all efforts to reverse the engines 
proved useless — swung back and forth, and when they 
struck the water were dragged along through the sea, 
making it almost impossible to get them away. 

BOAT CAPSIZES WITH WOMEN AND CHILDREN 

The first life-boat that struck the water capsized 
with some sixty women and children aboard her, and 
all of these must have been drowned almost instantly. 
Ten more boats were lowered, the desperate expedient 
of cutting away the ropes being resorted to to prevent 
them from being dragged along by the now halting 
steamer. 

The great ship was sinking by the bow, foot by foot, 
and in ten minutes after the first explosion she was 
already preparing to founder. Her stern rose high 
in the air, so that those in the boats that got away 
could see the whirring propellers, and even the boat 
deck was awash. 

Captain Turner urged the men to be calm, to take 
care of the women and children, and megaphoned the 
passengers to seize life-belts, chairs — anything they 
could lay hands on to save themselves from drowning. 
There was never any question in the captain's mind 
that the ship was about to sink, and if, as reported, 
some of the stewards ran about advising the passengers 
not to take to the boats, that there was no danger of 
the vessel going down till she reached shore, it was done 
without his orders. But many of the survivors have 
denied this, and declared that all the crew, officers, 
stewards and sailors, even the stokers, who dashed up 
from their flaming quarters below, showed the utmost 
18 



CRIME AGAINST CIVILIZATION 

bravery and calmness in the face of the disaster, and 
sought in every way to aid the panic-stricken passen- 
gers to get off the ship. 

HUNDREDS JUMP INTO THE SEA 

When it was seen that most of the boats would be 
useless, hundreds of passengers donned life-belts and 
jumped into the sea. Others seized deck chairs, 
tubs, kegs, anything available, and hurled themselves 
into the water, clinging to these articles. 

The first-cabin passengers fared worst, for the second 
and third-cabin travelers had long before finished their 
midday meal and were on deck when the torpedo 
struck. But the first-cabin people on the D deck and 
in the balcony, at luncheon, were at a terrible disad- 
vantage, and those who had already finished were in 
their staterooms resting or cleaning up preparatory 
to the after luncheon day. 

The confusion on the stairways became terrible, and 
the great number of little children, more than 150 
of them under two years, a great many of them infants 
in arms, made the plight of the women still more 
desperate. 

LUSITANIA GOES TO HER DOOM 

After the life-boats had cut adrift it was plain that 
a few seconds would see the end of the great ship. 
With a great shiver she bent her bow down below the 
surface, and then her stern uprose, and with a horrible 
sough the liner that had been the pride of the Cunard 
Line, plunged down in sixty fathoms of water. In 
the last few seconds the hundreds of women and men, 

19 



CRIME AGAINST CIVILIZATION 

a great many of them carrying children in their arms, 
leaped overboard, but hundreds of others, delaying 
the jump too long, were carried down in the suction 
that left a huge whirlpool swirling about the spot where 
the last of the vessel was seen. 

Among these were Elbert Hubbard and his wife, 
Charles Frohman, who was crippled with rheumatism 
and unable to move quickly; Justus Miles Forman, 
Charles Klein, Alfred G. Vanderbilt and many others 
of the best-liiiown Americans and Englishmen aboard. 

Captain Turner stayed on the bridge as the ship 
went down, but before *the last plunge he bade his 
staff officer and the helmsman, who were still with him, 
to save themselves. The helmsman leaped into the 
sea and was saved, but the staff officer would not 
desert his superior, and went down with the ship. He 
did not come to the surface again. 

Captain Turner, however, a strong swimmer, rose 
after the eddying whirlpool had calmed down, and, 
seizing a couple of deck chairs, kept himself afloat 
for three hours. The master-at-arms of the Lusitania, 
named Williams, who was looking for survivors in a 
boat after he had been picked up, saw the flash of the 
captain's gold-braided uniform, and rescued him, more 
dead than alive. 

INTERVIEW WITH CAPTAIN TURNER 

Despite the doubt as to whether two torpedoes 
exploded, or whether the first detonation Caused the 
big liner's boilers to let go. Captain Turner stated that 
there was no doubt that at least two torpedoes reached 
the ship. 
20 



CRIME AGAINST CIVILIZATION 

"I am not certain whetlier the two explosions — and 
there were two — resulted from torpedoes, or whether 
one was a boiler explosion. I am sure, however, that 
I saw the first torpedo strike the vessel on her starboard 
side. I also saw a second torpedo apparently headed 
straight for the steamship's hull, directly below the 
suite occupied by Alfred G. Vanderbilt." 

When asked if the second explosion had been caused 
by the blowing up of ammunition stored in the liner's 
hull. Captain Turner said: 

''No; if ammunition had exploded that would 
probably have torn the ship apart and the loss of life 
would have been much heavier than it w^as." 

Captain Turner declared that, from the bridge, he 
saw the torpedo streaking toward the Lusitania and 
tried to change the ship's course to avoid the missile, 
but was unable to do so in tim_e. The only thing left 
for him to do was to rush the liner ashore and beach 
her, and she was headed for the Irish coast when she 
foundered. 

According to Captain Turner, the German submarine 
did not flee at once after torpedoing the liner. 

"While I was swimming about after the ship had 
disappeared I saw the periscope of the submarine rise 
amidst the debris," said he. ''Instead of offering any 
help the submarine immediately submerged herself and 
I saw nothing more of her. I did everything possible 
for my passengers. That was all I could do." 



21 



CHAPTER II 

THE HEROES OF THE LUSITANIA AND 

THEIR HEROISM 

ALFRED G. VANDERBILT GAVE LIFE FOR A WOMAN 

CHARLES FROHMAN DIED WITHOUT FEAR SAVING 

THE BABIES TORONTO GIRL OF FOURTEEN PROVES 

HEROINE HEROISM OF CAPTAIN TURNER AND HIS 

CREW WOlVLiN RESCUED WITH DEAD BABY AT 

HER BREAST HEROIC WIRELESS OPERATORS 

SAVED HIS WIFE AND HELPED IN RESCUE WORK 

"saved all the women and CHILDREN WE 
COULD." 

EVERY great calamity produces its great heroes. 
Particularly is this true of marine disasters, where the 
opportunities of escape are limited, and where the 
heroism of the strong often impels them to stand back 
and give place to the weak. One cannot think of the 
Titanic disaster without remembering Major Archibald 
Butt, Colonel John Jacob Astor, Henry B. Harris, 
William T. Stead and others, nor of the sinldng of the 
Empress of Ireland without calling to mind Dr. James 
F. Grant, the ship's surgeon; Sir Henry Seton-Karr, 
Lawrence Irving, H. R. O'Hara of Toronto, and the 
rest of the noble company of heroes. So the destruc- 
tion of the Lusitania brought uppermost in the breasts 
of many those qualities of fortitude and self-sacrifice 
which will forever mark them in the calendar of the 
world's martyrs. 
22 



THE HEROES OF THE LUSITANIA 

ALFRED G. VANDERBILT GAVE LIFE FOR A WOMAN 

Among the Lusitania's heroes, one of the foremost 
was Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, one of America's 
wealthiest men. With everything to live for, Mr. 
Vanderbilt sacrificed his one chance for escape from 
the doomed Lusitania, in order that a woman might 
live. Details of the chivalry he displayed in those 
last moments when he tore off a hfe-belt as he was 
about to leap into the sea, and strapped it around a 
young woman, were told by three of the survivors. 

Mr. Vanderbilt could not swim, and when he gave 
up his life-belt it was with the virtual certainty that 
he was surrendering his only chance for life. 

Thomas Slidell, of New York, said he saw Mr. 
Vanderbilt on the deck as the Lusitania was sinking. 
He -Was equipped with a life-belt and was climbing over 
the rail, when a young woman rushed onto the deck. 
Mr. Vanderbilt saw her as he stood poised to leap into 
the sea. Without hesitating a moment he jumped back 
to the deck, tore off the life-belt, strapped it around the 
young woman and dropped her overboard. 

The Lusitania plunged under the waves a few 
minutes later and Mr. Vanderbilt was seen to be drawn 
into the vortex. 

Norman Ratcliffe, of Gillingham, Kent, and Wallace 
B. Phillips, a newspaper man, also saw Mr. Vanderbilt 
sink with the Lusitania. The coolness and heroism 
he showed were marvelous, they said. 

Oliver P. Bernard, scenic artist at Covent Garden, 
saw Mr. Vanderbilt standing near the entrance to the 
grand saloon soon after the vessel was torpedoed. 

'^He was the personification of sportsmanlike cool- 

23 



THE HEROES OF .THE LUSITANIA 

iiess/' Mr. Bernard said. "In his right hand was 
grasped what looked to me hke a large purple leather 
jewel case. It may have belonged to Lady Mack- 
worth, as Mr. Vanderbilt had been much in the 
company of the Thomas party during the trip and 
evidently had volunteered to do Lady Mackworth the 
service of saving her gems for her." 

Another touching incident was told of Mr. Vanderbilt 
by Mrs. Stanley L. B. Lines, a Canadian, who said: 
"Mr. Vanderbilt will in the future be remembered as 
the 'children's hero.' I saw him standing outside the 
palm saloon on the starboard side, with Ronald Denit. 
He looked upon the scene before him, and then, turning 
to his valet, said: 

" Tind all the kiddies you can and bring them here.' 
The servant rushed off and soon reappeared, herding a 
flock of little ones. Mr. Vanderbilt, catching a child 
under each arm, ran with them to a life-boat and 
dumped them in. He then threw in two more, and 
continued at his task until all the young ones were in 
the boat. Then he turned his attention to aiding 
the women into boats." 

CHARLES FROHMAN DIED WITHOUT TEAR 

"Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure 
in life," were the last words of Charles Frohman before 
he went down with the Lusitania, according to Miss 
Rita Jolivet, an American actress, with whom he talked 
calmly just before the end came. 

Miss Jolivet, who was among the survivors taken 
to Queenstown, said she and Mr. Frohman were 
standing ©m deck as the Lusitania heeled over. They 
24 





.^«•*»«^?fc^'^. 










THE HEROES OF THE LUSITANIA 

decided not to trust themselves to life-boats, although 
Mr. Frohman believed the ship was doomed. It was 
after reaching this decision that he declared he had no 
fear of death. 

Dr. F. Warren Pearl, of New York, who was saved, 




Germany's Official Paid Advertisement Forewarning Americans 
Against Disaster; Map Showing Where It Took Place. 

This advertisement was wired to forty American newspapers by Count 
von Bernstorff, German Ambassador at Washington. It was ordered inserted 
on the morning of the day the Lusitania sailed. 



with his wife and two of their four children, corrobo- 
rated Miss Jolivet's statement, saying: 

''After the first shock, as I made my way to the deck, 
I saw Charles Frohman distributing life-belts. Mr. 
Frohman evidently did not expect to ©scape, as he 

25 



THE HEROES OF THE LUSITANIA 

said to a woman passenger, 'Why should we fear death? 
It is the greatest adventure man can have.' " 

Sir James M. Barrie, in a tribute to Charles Frohman, 
published in the London Daily Mail, describes him 
as "the man who never broke his word. 

''His companies vfere as children to him. He chided 
them as children, soothed them as children and forgave 
them and certainly loved them as children. He exulted 
in those who became great in that world, and gave them 
beautiful toys to play with; but great as was their 
devotion to him, it is not they who will miss him most, 
but rather the far greater number who never made a 
hit, but set off like all the rest, and fell by the way. 
He was of so sympathetic a nature; he understood so 
well the dismalness to them of being failures, that he 
saw them as children, with their knuckles to their 
eyes, and then he sat back cross-legged on his chair, 
with his knuckles, as it were, to his eyes, and life had 
lost its flavor for him until he invented a scheme for 
giving them another chance. 

"Perhaps it is fitting that all those who only made 
for honest mirth and happiness should now go out of 
the world; because it is too wicked for them. It is 
strange to think that in America, Dernburg and 
Bernstorff, who we must believe were once good men, 
too, have an extra smile with their breakfast roll 
because they and theirs have drowned Charles Froh- 
man." 

SAVING THE BABIES 

The presence of so many babies on board the Lusi- 
tania was due to the influx from Canada of the English- 
26 



THE HEROES OF THE LUSITANIA 

born wives of Canadians at the battle front, who were 
coming to England to live with their own or their 
husband's parents during the war. 

No more pathetic loss has been recorded than that 
of F. G. Webster, a Toronto contractor, who was 
traveling second class with his wife, their six-year-old 
son Frederick and year-old tmn sons William and 
Henry. They reached the deck with others who were 
in the dining saloon when the torpedo struck. Webster 
took his son by the hand and darted away to bring 
life-belts. When he returned his wife and babies were 
not to be seen, nor have they been since. 

W. Harkless, an assistant purser, busied himself 
helping others until the Lusitania was about to founder. 
Then, seeing a life-boat striking the water that was not 
overcrowded, he made a rush for it. The only person 
he encountered was little Barbara Anderson, of Bridge- 
port, Conn., who was standing alone, clinging to the 
rail. Gathering her up in his arms he leaped over the 
rail and into the boat, doing this without injuring the 
child. 

Francis J. Luker, a British subject, who had worked 
six years in the United States as a postal clerk, and 
was going home to enlist, saved two babies. He 
found the little passengers, bereft of their mother, in 
the shelter of a deck-house. The Lusitania was nearing 
her last plunge. A life-boat was swaying to the water 
below. Grabbing the babies he ran to the rail and 
made a flying leap into the craft, and those babies did 
not leave his arms until they were set safely ashore 
hours later. 

One woman, a passenger on the Lusitania, lost all 

27 



THE HEROES OF THE LUSITANIA 

three of her children in the disaster, and gave the 
bodies of two of them to the sea herself. When the 
ship went down she held up the three children in the 
water, shrieking for help. When rescued two were 
dead. Their room was required and the mother was 
brave enough to realize it. 

''Give them to me!" she shrieked. ''Give them to 
me, my bonnie wee things. I will bury them. They 
are mine to bury as they were mine to keep." 

With her form shaking with sorrow she took hold 
of each little one from the rescuers and reverently 
placed it in the water again, and the people in the boat 
wept with her as she muimured a little sobbing prayer. 

Just as the rescuers were landing her third and only 
remaining child died. 

TORONTO GIRL OF FOURTEEN PROVES HEROINE 

Even the young girls and women on the Lusitania 
proved themselves heroines during the last few moments 
and met their fate calmly or rose to emergencies which 
called for great bravery and presence of mind. 

Fourteen-year-old Kathleen Kaye was returning 
from Toronto, where she had been visiting relatives. 
With a merry smile on her lips and with a steady patter 
of reassurance, she aided the stewards who were filling 
one of the life-boats. 

Soon after the girl took her own place in the boat one 
of the sailors fainted under the strain of the efforts 
to get the boat clear of the maelstrom that marked 
where the liner went down. Miss Kaye took the 
abandoned oar and rov/ed until the boat was out of 
danger. None among the survivors bore fewer signs 
28 



THE HEROES OF THE LUSITANIA 

of their terrible experiences than Miss Kaye. who spent 
most of her time comforting and assisting her sisters 
in misfortune. 



HEROISM OF CAPTAIN TURNER AND HIS CREW 

Ernest Cowper, a Toronto newspaper man, praised 
the work of the Lusitania's crew in their efforts to 
get the passengers into the boats. Mr. Cowper toid 
of having observed the ship watches keeping a strict 
lookout for submarines as soon as the ship began to 
near the coast. 

"The crew proceeded to get the passengers into 
boats in an orderly, prompt and efficient manner. 
Helen Smith, a child, begged me to save her. I placed 
her in a boat and saw her safelj' away. I got into one 
of the last boats to leave. 

"Some of the boats could not be launched, as the 
vessel was sinldng. There was a large number of 
women and children in the second cabin. Forty of 
the children were less than a year old." 

WOMAN RESCUED "WITH DEAD BABY AT HER BREAST 

R. J. Timmis, of Gainesville, Tex., a cotton buyer, 
who was saved after he had given his life-belt to a 
woman steerage passenger who carried a baby, told 
of the loss of his friend, R. T. Moodie, also of Gaines- 
ville. Moodie could not svfim, but he took off his 
life-belt also and put it on a woman who had a six- 
months-old child in her arms. Timmis tried to help 
Moodie, and they both clung to some wreckage for a 
while, but presently Moodie could hold out no longer 
and sank. When Timmis was dragged into a boat 

29 



THE HEROES OF THE LUSITANIA 

which he helped to right — it had been overturned in 
the suction of the sinking vessel — one of the first 
persons he assisted into the boat was the steerage 
v/oman to whom he had given his belt. She still 
carried her baby at her breast, but it was dead from 
exposure. 

HEROIC WIRELESS OPERATORS 

Oliver P. Brainard told of the bravery of the wireless 
operators who stuck to their work of summoning help 
even after it was evident that only a few minutes could 
elapse before the vessel must go do^vn. He said: 

"The wireless operators were working the emergency 
outfit, the main installation having been put out of gear 
instantaneously after the torpedo exploded. They 
were still awaiting a reply and were sending out the 
S. O. S. call. 

"I looked out to sea and saw a man, undressed, 
floating quietly on his back in the water, evidently 
waiting to be picked up rather than to take the chance 
of getting away in a boat. He gave me an idea and I 
took off my jacket and waistcoat, put my money in my 
trousers pocket, unlaced my boots and then returned 
to the Marconi men. 

"The assistant operator said, 'Hush! we are still 
hoping for an answer. We don't know yet whether 
the S. O. S. calls have been picked up or not.' 

"At that moment the chief operator turned around, 
saying, They've got it!' 

"At that very second the emergency apparatus 
also broke down. The operator had left the room, 
but he dashed back and brought out a kodak. He 
30 



THE HEROES OF THE LUSITANIA 

knelt on the deck, now listing at an angle of thirty- 
five degrees, and took a photograph looking for- 
ward. 

"The assistant, a big, cheerful chap, lugged out the 
operator's swivel chair and offered it to me with a 
laugh, saying: 'Take a seat and make yourself com- 
fortable.' He let go the chair and it careened down the 
deck and over into the sea." 

F. J. Gauntlet, of New York and Washington, 
traveling in company with A. L. Hopkins, president 
of the Newport News Shipbuilding Company, and 
S. M. Knox, president of the New York Shipbuilding 
Company, of Philadelphia, unconsciously told the 
story of his own heroism. He said: 

"I was lingering in the dining saloon chatting with 
friends when the first explosion occurred. Some of us 
went to our staterooms and put on life-belts. Going 
on deck we were informed that there was no danger, 
but the bow of the vessel was gradually sinldng. The 
work of launching the boats was done in a few min- 
utes. Fifty or sixty people entered the first boat. 
As it swung from the davits it fell suddenly and I think 
most of the occupants perished. The other boats 
were lauQched with the greatest difficulty. 

"Swinging free from one of these as it descended, I 
grabbed what I supposed was a piece of wreckage. 
I found it to be a collapsible boat, however. I had 
great difficulty in getting it open, finally having to rip 
the canvas with my knife. Soon another passenger 
came alongside and entered the collapsible with me. 
We paddled around and between us we rescued thirty 
people from the water." 

31 



THE HEROES OF THE LUSITANIA 

SAVED HIS WIFE AND HELPED IN RESCUE WORK 

George A. Kessler, of New York, said: 
"A list to starboard had set in as we were climbing 
the stairs and it had so rapidly increased by the time 
we reached the deck, that we were falling against the 
taffrail. I managed to get my wife onto the first-class 
deck and there three boats were being got out. 

^'I placed her in the third, kissed her good-by and 
saw the boat lowered safely. Then I turned to look 
for a life-belt for mj^self. The ship now started to go 
down. I fell into the water, some kind soul throwing 
me a life-belt at the same time. Ten minutes later 
I found myself beside a raft on which were some sur- 
vivors, who pulled me onto it. We cruised around look- 
ing for others and managed to pick up a few, making 
in air perhaps sixteen or seventeen persons who were 
on the raft. In all directions were scattered persons 
struggling for their lives and the boats gave what help 
they could." 

''saved all the women and children we could" 

W. G. E. Meyers, of Stratford, Ont., a lad of sixteen 
years, who was on his way to join the British navy as a 
cadet, told this story: 

' ''I went below to get a life-belt and met a woman 
who was frenzied with fear. I tried to calm her and 
helped her into a boat. Then I saw a boat which 
was nearly swamped. I got into it with other men and 
baled it out. Then a crowd of men clambered into it 
and nearly swamped it 

''We had got only two hundred yards away v^^hen 
the Lusitania sank, bow first. Many persons sank with 
32 



THE HEROES OF THE LUSITANIA 

her, drawn down by the suction. Their shrieks were 
appaUing. We had to pull hard to get away, and, as it 
was, we were almost dragged down. We saved all the 
women and children we could, but a great many of 
them went down." 

H. Smethhurst, a steerage passenger, put his wife 
into a life-boat, and in spite of her urging refused to 
accompany her, saying the women and children must 
go first. After the boat with his wife in it had pulled 
away Smethhurst put on a life-belt, slipped down a 
rope into^the water and floated until he was picked up. 



33 



CHAPTER III 

SOUL-STIREING STORIES OF SURVIVORS OF 
THE LUSITANIA 

COULD NOT LAUNCH BOATS SAYS SHIP SANK IN 

FIFTEEN MINUTES SCREAMS INTENSIFY HORROR 

ON HUNT FOR THE LIFE-BELTS INJURED BOY 

SHOWS PLUCK MANY CHILDREN DROWNED 

WOMEN RUSHED FOR THE BOATS THREATENED 

SEAMEN WITH REVOLVER. 

AMONG the stories of the Lusitania horror told by 
the survivors were a few that stand out from the 
rest for their clearness and vividness. One of the most 
interesting of these, notable for the prominence of 
the man who relates it as well as for its conciseness, 
was the description given by Samuel M. Knox, presi- 
dent of the New York Shipbuilding Company. Mr. 
Knox said: 

"Shortly after two, while we were finishing lunch- 
eon in a calm sea, a heavy concussion was felt on the 
starboard side, throwing the vessel to port. She 
immediately swung back and proceeded to take on a 
Hst to starboard, which rapidly increased. 

''The passengers rapidly, but in good form, left 
the dining room, proceeding mostly to the A or boat 
deck. There were preparations being made to launch 
the boats. Order among the passengers was well 
maintained, there being nothing approaching a panic. 



STORIES OF SURVIVORS 

Many of the passengers had gone to their staterooms 
and provided themselves with hfe-belts. 

''The vessel reached an angle of about twenty-four 
degrees and at this point there seemed to be a cessa- 
tion in the listing, the vessel maintaining this position 
for four or five minutes, when something apparently 
gave way, and the list started anew and increased 
rapidly until the end. 

"The greater number of passengers were congre- 
gated on the high side of the ship, and when it became 
apparent that she was going to sink I made my way 
to the lower side, where there appeared to be several 
boats only partly filled and no passengers on that 
deck. At this juncture I found the outside of the 
boat deck practically even with the water and the 
ship was even farther down by the head. 

COULD NOT LAUNCH BOATS 

''I stepped into a boat and a sailor in charge then 
attempted to cast her off, but it was found that the 
boat-falls had fouled the boat and she could not be 
released in the limited time available. I went over- 
board at once and attempted to get clear of the ship, 
which was coming over slowly. I was caught by one 
of the smokestacks and carried down a considerable 
distance before being released. 

"On coming to the surface I floated about for a 
considerable time, when I was picked up by a life- 
raft. This raft, with others, had floated free when the 
vessel sank, and had been picked up and taken charge 
of by Mr. Gauntlet, of Washington, and Mr. Lam^- 
iat, of Boston, who picked up thirty-two persons in all. 

35 



STORIES OF SURVIVORS 

"It was equipped wath oars, and we made our way 
to & fisbing smack, about five miles distant, which 
took us on board, although it was already overloaded. 
We were finally taken off this boat by the Cunard 
tender Flying Fish and brought to Queensto^oi at 
9.30." 

Some of the passengers, notably David A. Thomas, 
told of panickj!- conditions on board the vessel before 
she sank, and one of the rescued declared that the loss 
of life was due to some extent to the assurances spread 
by the stewards among the passengers that there 
was no danger of the Lusitania sinking. But all united 
in praising the courage and steadiness of the officers 
and crew of the ship. 

' SAYS SHIP SANK IN FIFTEEN MINUTES 

Mr. Thomas, a Cardiff, Wales, coal magnate, who 
was rescued with his daughter, Lady Mackworth, 
said that not more than fifteen minutes elapsed be- 
tween the first explosion and the sinking of the ship. 
Lady Mackworth had put on a Hfe -preserver and 
went down with the Lusitania. When she arose to 
the surface, Mr. Thomas said, she was unconscious, 
and floated around in the tumbling sea for three and 
a half hours before she. was picked up. 

"As soon as the explosions occurred," said Mr. 
Thomas, "and the officers ^ learned what had hap- 
pened, the ship's course ' was directed toward the 
shore, with the idea of beaching her. Captain Turner 
remained upon the bridge until the ship went down, 
and he was swallowed up in the maelstrom that fol- 
lowed. He wore a life-belt, which kept him afloat 
36 



STORIES OF SURVIVORS 

when he arose to the surface, and remained in the 
water for three hours before he was picked up by a 
life-boat. 

''During the last few minutes' hfe of the Lusitania 
she was a ship of 
panic and tumult. 
Excited men and 
terrified women 
ran shouting and 
screaming about 
the decks. Lost 
children cried 
shrilly. Officers 
and seamen rushed 
among the panic- 
stricken passen- 
gers, shouting 
orders and helping 
the women and 
children into life- 
boats. Women 
clung desperately 
to their husbands 
or knelt on the deck and prayed. Life-preservers 
were distributed among the passengers, who hastily 
donned them and flung themselves into the water. 

SCREAMS INTENSIFY HORROR 

''In their haste and excitement the seamen over- 
loaded one life-boat and the davit ropes broke while 
it was being lowered, the occupants being thrown 
into the water. The screams of these terrified women 




^S's 



As Othei^ ^e Us. 



STORIES OF SUEVIVORS 

and men intensified the fright of those still on the 
ship. Altogether I counted ten life-boats launched. " 

A German submarine was seen for an hour before 
the liner was sunk, according to Dr. Daniel Moore, 
of Yankton, S. D., who said: 

''About 1 p. M. we noticed that the Lusitania was 
steering a zigzag course. Land had been in sight 
for three hours, distinctly visible twelve miles away. 
Looking through my glasses, I could see on the port 
side of the Lusitania, between us and land, what 
appeared to be a black, oblong object, with four 
dome-like projections. It was moving along parallel 
to us, more than two miles away. At times it slowed 
down and disappeared. But always it reappeared. 
All this time the Lusitania was zigzagging along. 
Later the Lusitania kept a more even course, and 
we generally agreed then that it was a friendly sub- 
marine we were ¥/atching. We had seen no other 
vessels except one or two fishing boats. 

''At 1.40 we sat down to luncheon in the second 
saloon. We talked of the curious object we had seen, 
but nobody seemed anxious or concerned. About 
two o'clock a muffled, drum-like noise sounded from 
the forward part of the Lusitania and she shivered 
and trembled. Almost immediately she began to 
list to starboard. She had been struck on the star- 
board side. Unless the first submarine seen had 
been speedy enough to make rings around the Lusi- 
tania, this torpedo must have come from a second 
submarine which had been lying hidden to starboard. 

"We heard no sound of explosion. There was gen- 
eral excitement among the passengers at luncheon, 
38 



STORIES OF SURVIVORS 

but the women were soon quieted by assurances that 
there was no danger and that the Lusitania had 
merely struck a small mine. The passengers left the 
saloon in good order. 

ON HUNT FOR THE LIFE-BELTS 

''As I reached the deck above I had difficulty in 
walking owing to the tilt of the vessel. With most 
of the passengers I ran on to the promenade deck. 
There was no crushing. Although the deck was 
crowded; I looked over the side; but I could see no 
evidence of damage. I started to return to my cabin, 
but the list of the liner was so marked that I aban- 
doned the idea and regained the deck. Looking over 
the starboard rail, I saw that the water was now only 
about twelve feet from the rail at one point. While 
searching for a life-belt I came upon a stewardess 
struggKng with a pile of life-belts in a rack below deck 
and helped her put one on, afterward securing one for 
myself. I had tremendous difficulty in reaching 
the promenade deck again 

''The Lusitania now was on her side and sinking 
by the bow. I saw a woman clinging to the rail near 
where a boat was being lowered. I pushed her over 
the rail into the boat, afterward jumping down myself. 

"The boat fell bodily into the sea, but kept afloat, 
although so heavily loaded that water was lapping 
in. We bailed with our hats, but could not keep pace 
with the water, and I reaHzed we must soon sink. 

"Seeing a keg, I threw it overboard and sprang 
after it. A young steward named Freeman also 
used the keg as a support. Looking back, I saw the 

39 



STORIES OF SURVIVORS 

boat I had left swamped. We clung to the keg for 
about an hour and a half and then were picked up 
by a raft on which were twentj^ persons, including two 
women. 

'^We had oars and rowed toward land. At about 
four o'clock we were picked up by the patrol boat 
Brook. She took us aboard and then cruised out to 
where the Lusitania had gone down, picking up many 
survivors there, also taking aboard many from boats 
and rafts. 

INJURED BOY SHOWS PLUCK 

"A number of^those picked up were injured, includ- 
ing a little boy, whose left thigh was broken. I im- 
provised splints for him and set his leg. He was 
a plucky little chap, and was soon asking, 'Is there a 
funny paper aboard?' 

''At the scene of the catastrophe the surface of the 
water had seemed dotted with bodies. Only a few 
life-boats seemed to be doing good. Cries of 'Save 
us! Help!' gradually grew weaker from all sides. 
Finally low wailings made the heart sick. I saw 
many men die. 

"There was no suction when the ship settled. It 
went down steadily. The life-boats were not in order 
and they were not manned. Weighing all the facts 
soberly convinces me that it was only through the 
mercy of God that any one was saved. Are there 
any bounds to tliis modern vandalism?" 

L. Tonner, a County Dublin man, and a stoker on 
the Lusitania, who was one of the survivors landed 
at Kinmle, said: 
40 




Prominent American Victims of the Lusitania Horror. 
Alfred G. Vanderbilt. New York Mil- Elbert Hubbard, Editor and Lec- 
lionaire. (C. Underwood & Under- turer. (0. Int. Neivs Service.) 

^"ch'arles Prohman, Theatrical Mag- Charles Klein, well-known Play- 
nate. (C. Underu;ood & UnderwoodT) wright. (C. Int. News Service.) 




-< it:) OK 



H O 



o .5 



STORIES OF SURVIVORS 

'^ There must have been two submarines attacking 
the Lusitania. The Hner was first torpedoed on 
the starboard side, and right through the engine room 
a few minutes afterward the Lusitania received a 
second torpedo on the port side. Tho Lusitania listed 
so heavily to starboard that it was impossible to lower 
the boats on the port side." 

MANY CHILDREN DROWNED 

G. D. Lane, a youthful but cool-headed second- 
cabin passenger, who was returning to Wales from 
New York, was in a life-boat which was capsized by 
the davits as the Lusitania heeled over. 

"I was on the B deck," he said, ''when I saw the 
wake of a torpedo. I hardly realized what it meant 
when the big ship seemed to stagger and almost im- 
mediately listed to starboard. I rushed to get a 
life-belt, but stopped to help get children on the boat 
deck. The second cabin was a veritable nursery. 

"Many youngsters must have drowned, but I had 
the satisfaction of seeing one boat get away filled 
with women and children. When the water reached 
the deck I saw another life-boat with a vacant seat, 
which I took, as no one else was in sight, but we were 
too late. The Lusitania reeled so suddenly our boat 
was swamped, but we righted it again. 

''W^e now witnessed the most horrible scene of 
human futility it is possible to imagine. When the 
Lusitania had turned almost over she suddenly plunged 
bow foremost into the water, leaving her stern high 
in the air. People on the aft deck were fighting with 
wild desperation to retain a footing on the almost 

41 



STORIES OF SURVIVORS 

perpendicular deck while they fell over the slippery 
stern like crippled flies. 

''Their cries and shrieks could be heard above the 
hiss of escaping steam and the crash of bursting 
boilers. Then t^^^ water mercifully closed over them 
and the big liner disappeared, leaving scarcely a ripple 
behind her. 

''Twelve life-boats were all that were left of our 
floating home. In time which could be measured by 
seconds swimmers, bodies and wreckage appeared 
in the space where she went down. I was almost 
exhausted by the work of rescue when taken aboard 
the trawler. It seems like a horrible dream now." 

WOMEN RUSHED FOR THE BOATS 

According to another American survivor, W. H. 
Brooks, "there was a scene of great confusion as women 
and children rushed for the boats which were launched 
with the greatest difficulty and danger, owing to the 
tilting of the ship. 

"I heard the captain order that no more boats 
be launched, so I leaped into the sea. After I reached 
the water there was another explosion which sent up 
a shower of wreckage." 

Dr. J. T. Houghton, of Troy, N. Y., said: "It was 
believed there was no reason to fear any danger after 
the first explosion, as it was said the vessel would 
be headed for Queenstown and beached if necessary. 
Meanwhile boats were being got ready for any emer- 
gency. 

"Just then the liner was again struck, evidently 
in a more vital spot, for it began to settle rapidly. 
42 



lES OF SURVIVORS 



Orders then came from the bridge to lower all boats. 
A near panic took possession of the women. People 
were rushed into the boats, some of which were launched 
successfully, others not so successfully." 

Oscar F. Grab, of New York, said: ''I was able 
to get hold of a life-preserver and I remained on the 
starboard side until the water was almost at my feet. 
Then I slid into the sea so easily that I did not even 
wet my hair. I was soon picked up by a boat in 
which were twenty women and some children. 

^^We had to keep the women lying in the bottom 
so as to get room to pull at the oars. The ship went 
down, as seen by me from the water, in this fashion: 

''She had settled down well forward. She then 
listed to starboard, and rose to a perpendicular until 
the stern with the propellers was sticking straight 
out of the water 

''An explosion then occurred as the water reached 
the boilers; one of the funnels was blown clean out, 
and in half a minute there was nothing visible of the 
Lusitania but a lot of wreckage mingled with a number 
of dead bodies." 

PATERSON, N. J., GIRLS AMONG RESCUED 

The Misses Agnes and Evelyn Wilde, sisters, of 
Paterson, N. J., were at lunch when the torpedo 
struck the vessel. They rushed on deck. Miss Agnes 
Wilde said: 

"We clung to each other, determined not to be 
separated, even if we went to the bottom. We were 
thrown into a boat, together with thirty-six others, 
and after several hours were picked up by a fishing 

d3 



STORIES OF SURVIVORS 

boa.t, vv-hich tov/ed us for several hours, intending to 
ta,ke us to Kinsale. Before we arrived, however, 
a Government boat came along and took us to Queens- 
town. 

"We were drenched to the skin, cold and penni- 
less. We went into a shop, where they fitted us out 
from head to foot without charge. We are only be- 
ginning to realize what we have passed through." 

Mrs. Martha Anna Wyatt, sixty years old, of New 
Bedford, Mass., said: "I went down with the ship 
and spent four hours in a collapsible boat before being 
picked up. I was going to England to live. 

"While the ship was sinking I found it impossible 
to get into any of the life-boats. There seemed no 
help about. I simply stood still, clinging to the rail, 
and went down. I seemed to go to the bottom. When 
I came to the surface again I was pulled into the 
coUapsible boat which brought me to safety." 

Mrs. C. Stewart, who was traveling from Toronto 
to Glasgow, said: 

"I was in my cabin with my eight-months-old baby, 
who was sleeping in the berth, when I heard the 
crash. I snatched my baby up and went on deck. 
A man yelled, 'Come on with the baby.' I handed 
him the infant and he said, 'Now for yourself.' 

"We were two and a half hours in the boat before 
we were picked up by a Greek steamer." 

Robert C. Wright, of Cleveland, 0., gave what 
may be the last word of Elbert Hubbard. Mr. Wright 
said : 

"I don't know who was saved, but I know that 
Elbert Hubbard must have been drowned. He was a 
44 



STORIES OF SUKVIVOES 

conspicuous person on account of his long hair. I 
saw him and his wife start below, apparently for life- 
belts, but I never saw either again. I am certain 
they were drowned." 

THREATENED SEAMEN WITH REVOLVER 

Isaac Lehmann, of New York, a first-cabin pas- 
senger, who described himself as being engaged in the 
Department of Government SuppKes, said that after 
having witnessed an accident to one of the boats 
through the snapping of the ropes while it was being 
lowered, he ran into his cabin and seizing a revolver 
and a life-belt, returned to the deck and mounted 
a collapsible boat a.nd called to some of the crew to 
assist in launching it. One sailor, he said, replied 
that the captain's orders were that no boats were to 
be put out. 

''I drew my revolver, which was loaded with ball 
cartridges," said Mr. Lehmann, ''and shouted 'I'll 
shoot the first man v/ho refuses to assist in launching.' 
The boat was then lowered. At least sixty persons 
were in it. Unfortunately, the Lusitania lurched so 
badly that the boat repeatedly struck the side of 
the sinking ship, and I think at least twenty of its 
occupants were killed or injured. 

"At that instant we heard an explosion on the right 
up forward, and within two minutes the liner disap- 
peared. I was thrown clear of the wreckage, and 
went down twice, but the life-belt that I had on 
brought me up. I was in the water fuUy four hours 
and a half." 

Asked as to the probable speed of the Lusitania 

45 



STORIES OF SUliVIVOKS 

when she was struck by the torpedo, Mr. Lehmann 
said the boat was probably going at about sixteen or 
seventeen knots. 

Juhan de Ayala, Consul General for Cuba at Liver- 
pool, said that he was ill in his berth when the Lusi- 
tania was torpedoed. He was thrown against the 
partition of his berth by the explosion and suffered an 
injury to his head and had flesh torn off one of his legs. 

The boat Mr. de Ayala got into capsized and he was 
thrown into the water, but later he was picked up. 

''Captain Turner," said Mr. de Ayala, "thought 
he could bring the crippled vessel into Queenstov/n, 
but she rapidly began to sink by the head. 

"Her stern went up so high," Mr. de A3^ala addea, 
"that we could see all of her propellers, and she went 
down with a headlong plunge, volumes of steam 
hissing from her funnels. " 

RESCUED UNCONSCIOUS FROM THE WATER 

The experience of two New York girls. Miss Mary 
Barrett and Miss Kate MacDonald, rescued at the 
last minute, may be taken as typical of the experience 
of many others. Miss Barrett gives the following 
account of her experiences: 

"We had gone into the second saloon and were 
just finishing lunch. I heard a sound something 
like the smashing of big dishes and then there came a 
second and louder crash. Miss MacDonald and 
I started to go upstairs, but we were thrown back by 
the crowd when the ship stopped. But we managed 
to get to the second deck, where we found sailors 
trying to lower boats. 
46 



STORIES OF SURVIVORS 

"There was no panic and the ship's officers and crew 
went about their work quietly and steadily. I went 
to get two life-belts, but a man standing by told us 
to remain where we were and he would fetch them for 
us. He brought us two belts and Y^e put them on. By 
this time the ship was leaning right over to starboard 
and we were both thrown down. We managed to 
scramble to the side of the liner. 

"Near us I saw a rope attached to one of the Hfe- 
boats. I thought I could catch it, so we murmured 
a few words of prayer and then jumped into the water, 
I missed the rope, but floated about in the water for 
some time. I did not lose consciousness at first, but 
the water got into my eyes and mouth and I began to 
lose hope of ever seeing my friends again. I could 
not see anybody near me. Then I must have lost 
consciousness, for I remember nothing more until one 
of the Lusitania's life-boats came along. The crew 
was pulling on board another woman, who was un- 
conscious, and they shouted to me, ^You hold on a 
little longer!' 

"After a time they lifted me out of the water. Then 
I remembered nothing more for a time. In the mean- 
time our boat had picked up twenty others. It was 
getting late in the evening when we were transferred 
to a trawler and taken to Queenstown. 

"Miss MacDonalcl floated about nearly four hours 
in a dazed state. She had little remembrance of what 
had passed until a boat saved her. She remembered 
somebody saying, 'Oh, the poor girl is dead!' She had 
just strength to raise her hand and they returned and 
pulled her on board." 

47 



STORIES OF SUEVIVORS 

Miss Conner, a cousin of Henry L. Stimson, for- 
merly Secretary of War of the United States, was stand- 
ing beside Lady Mackworth when they were flung 
into the water as the ship keeled over. Both women 
were provided with life-belts and were picked up when 
at the point of exhaustion. 

LIFE-BOAT SMASHED 

Doctor Howard Fisher of New York, who is a 
brother of Walter L. Fisher, formerly Secretary 
of the Interior of the United States, was on his 
way to Belgium for Red Cross duty. His story 
follows : 

"It is not true that those on board were uncon- 
cerned over the possibility of being torpedoed. I 
took the big liner to save time and also because in 
case of a floating mine I felt she would have more 
chance of staying up. But like everybody else aboard, 
I felt sure in case of being torpedoed that we would 
have ample time to take to the boats. 

''When I heard the crash I rushed to the port side. 
No officer was in sight. An effort was being made 
to lower the boat swinging just opposite the grand 
entrance. Women, children and men made a mad 
scramble about this boat, which was smashed against 
the side, tlirowing all the occupants into the sea. 

''Then two big men, one a sailor and the other a 
passenger, succeeded in launching a second boat. 
Much to my surprise this amateur effort was success- 
ful. This boat got away and carried chiefly women 
and children. This boat was successfully launched 
on the port side. 
48 



STORIES OF SURVIVORS 

REASSURED BY SHIP's OFFICER 

''We then saw our first glimpse of an officer, who 
came along the deck and spoke to Lady Mackworth, 
Miss Conner and myself, who were standing in a 
group. He said: 

" 'Don't worry, the ship will right itself/ He had 
hardly moved on before the ship turned sideways 
and then seemed to plunge head foremost into the 



"I came up after what seemed to be an intermi- 
nable time under water and found myself surrounded 
by swimmers, dead bodies and wreckage. I got on 
an upturned yawl, where I found thirty other people, 
among them Lady Allan, whose collar-bone was broken 
while she was in the water. 

"Another passenger on the yawl, a man whose name 
I did not learn, had his arm hanging by the skin. 
His injury probably was due to the explosion which 
followed. His arm was amputated successfully with 
a butcher knife by a little Italian surgeon aboard the 
tramp steamer which picked me up. "^ 



40 



CHAPTER IV 

A CANADIAN'S ACCOUNT OF THE 
LUSITANIA HORROR 

PERCY ROGERS, OF CANADIAN NATIONAL EXHIBI- 
TION, TELLS GRAPHIC STORY PASSENGERS WERE 

AGHAST OCCUPANTS OF LIFE-BOATS THROWN INTO 

SEA ^A HEART-BREAKING SCENE. 

PERCY ROGERS, assistant manager and secretary 
of the Canadian National Exhibition, who went to 
England in connection with the Toronto Fair, told 
a graphic story of his experiences after the Lusitania 
was struck. He undoubtedly owed his life to the fact 
that he was a good svfimmer. 

"It had been a splendid crossing," he said, "with 
a calm sea and fine weather contributing to a dehghtful 
trip. The Lusitania made nothing like her maximum 
pace. Her speed probably was about five hundred 
miles daily, which, as travelers know, is below her 
average. 

"Early Friday morning we sighted the Irish coast. 
Then we entered a slight fog, and speed was reduced, 
but we soon came into a clear atmosphere again, and 
the pace of the boat increased. The morning passed 
and we went as usual down to lunch, although some 
were a httle later than others in taking the meal. I 
should think it would be about ten minutes past two 
when I came from lunch. I immediately proceeded to 
50 



/ 



A CANADIAN'S ACCOUNT 

my stateroom, close to the dining-room, to get a letter 
which I had written. While in there I heard a tremen- 
dous thud, and I came out immediately. 

PASSENGERS WERE AGHAST 

" There was no panic where I was, but the people were 
aghast. It was realized that the boat had been struck, 
apparently on the side nearest the land. The passen- 
gers hastened to the boat deck above. The hfe-boats 
were hanging out, having been put into that position 
on the previous day. The Lusitania soon began to list 
badly with the result that the side on which I and 
several others were standing v/ent up as the other 
side dropped. This seemed to cause difficulty in launch- 
ing the boats, which seemed to get bound against the 
side of the Hner. 

^'It was impossible, of course, for me to see what was 
happening in other places, but among the group where 
I was stationed there was no panic. The order was 
given, 'Women and children first,' and was followed 
implicitly. The first life-boat lowered with people at 
the spot where I stood smacked upon the water, and 
as it did so the stern of this life-boat seemed to part and 
the people were thrown into the sea. The other boats 
were lowered more successfully. 

''We heard somebody say, 'Get out of the boats; 
there is no danger,' and some people actually did get 
out, but the direction was not generally acted upon. 
I entered a boat in which there were men, women and 
children, I should say between twenty and twenty-five. 
There were no other women or children standing on 
the liner where we were, our position, I should think, 

5i 



A CANADIAN'S ACCOUNT 

being about the last boat but one from the stern of the 
ship. 

OCCUPANTS OP LIFE-BOATS THROWN INTO SEA 

''Our boat dropped into the water, and for a few 
minutes we were all right. Then the hner went over. 
We were not far from her. Whatever the cause may 
have been — perhaps the effect of suction — I don't know, 
but we|[were thrown into the sea. Some of the occu- 
pants were wearing life-belts, but I was not. The 
only life-belts I knew about were in the cabins, and it 
had not appeared to me that there was time to risk 
going there. It must have been about 2.30 when I was 
thrown into the water. The watch I was wearing 
stopped at that time. 

''What a terrible scene there was around me! It 
is harrowing to think about the men, women and chil- 
dren struggling in the water. I had the presence of 
mind to swim away from the boat and made towards 
a collapsible boat, upon which was the captain and a 
number of others. For this purpose I had to swim 
quite a distance. 

"I noticed three children among the gToup. Our 
collapsible boat began rocking. Every moment it 
seemed we should be thrown again into the sea. The 
captain appealed to the people in it to be careful, but 
the boat continued to rock, and I came to the conclusion 
that it would be dangerous to remain in it if all were 
to have a chance. I said, 'Good-by, Captain; I'm 
going to swim,' and jumped into the water. I believe 
the captain did the same thing after me, although I did 
not see him, but I understand he was picked up. 
52 



A CANADIAN'S ACCOUNT 




•,^OD. IS- .with:;,us^* 



wir M ^6m m »^^l^ga^J&m 



A CANADIAN'S ACCOUNT 

A HEART-BREAKING SCENE 

*'The scene was now terrible. Particularly do I 
remember a young child with a life-belt around her 
calling, 'Mamma!' She was not saved. I had seen 
her on the liner, and her sister was on the collapsible 
boat, but I could not reach her. I saw a cold-storage 
box or cupboard. I swam towards it and clung to it. 
This supported me for a long time. At last I saw 
a boat coming towards me and shouted. I was heard 
and taken in. From this I was transferred to what I 
think was a trawler, which also picked up three or four 
others. Eventually I was placed upon a ferry boat 
known as the Flying Fish, in which, with others, I was 
taken to Queenstown. 

''It was quite possible that some people went down 
while in their cabins, because after lunch it was the 
custom with some to go for a rest. A friend of mine 
on the liner has told me he saw Alfred G. Vanderbilt 
on deck with a life-belt and observed him_ give it to a 
lady. It seemed to me the seriousness of the situation 
scarcely was realized when the boat was torpedoed. 
It was all so sudden and so unexpected, and the recol- 
lection of it all is terrible." 



M 



CHAPTER V 
THE PLOT AGAINST THE RESCUE SHIPS 

GERMAN SUBMARINES PREVENTED RESCUE OF LUSI- 

TANIA PASSENGERS STORY OF ETONIAN'S CAPTAIN 

— DODGED TWO SUBMARINES NARRAGANSETT 

DRIVEN OFF TORPEDO FIRED AT NARRAGANSETT. 

FROM THE lips of Captain Turner, of the Lusitania, 
and from several of the survivors the world has heard 
the story of the sudden appearance among the debris 
and the dead of the sunken liner, of the German 
submarine that had fired the torpedo which sent almost 
1,200 non-combatants, hundreds of them helpless women 
and children, and among them more than a hundred 
American citizens, to their deaths. But it remained for 
the captain of the steamship Etonian, arriving at 
Boston on May 18, to add the crowning touch to the 
tragedy. 

Captain William F. Wood, of the Etonian, specifically 
charged that two German submarines deliberately 
prevented him from going to the rescue of the Lusi- 
tania's passengers after he had received the liner's 
wireless S. 0. S. call, and when he was but forty miles 
or so away, and might have rendered great assistance 
to the hundreds of victims. 

Captain Wood charged further that two other ships, 
both within the same distance of the Lusitania when 
she sank, were warned off by submarines, and that 

55 



PLOT AGAINST RESCUE SHIPS 

when the nearest one, the Narragansett, bound for New 
York, persisted in the attempt to proceed to the rescue 
of the Lusitania's passengers, a submarine fired a 
torpedo at her, which missed the Narragansett by only 
a few feet. 

STORY OF Etonian's captain 

The Etonian is a freight-carrying steamship, owned 
by the Wilson-Furness-Leyland Hnes, and under charter 
to the Cunard Line. She sailed from Liverpool on May 
6. Captain Wood's story, as he told it without embel- 
lishment and in the most positive terms, was as follows : 

"We had left Liverpool without unusual incident, and 
it was two o'clock on the afternoon of Friday, May 7, 
that we received the S. 0. S. call from the Lusitania. 
Her wireless operator sent this message: 'We are ten 
miles south of Kinsale. Come at once.' 

''I was then about forty-two miles from the position 
he gave me. Two other steamships were ahead of me, 
going in the same direction. They were the Narra- 
gansett and the City of Exeter. The Narragansett 
was closer to the Lusitania, and she answered the 
S. 0. S. call. 

*'At 5 p. M. I observed the City of Exeter across our 
bow and she signaled, 'Have you heard anything of 
the disaster?' 

"At that very moment I saw the periscope of a 
submarine between the Etonian and the City of 
Exeter. The submarine was about a quarter of a 
mile directly ahead of us. She immediately dived as 
soon as she saw us coming for her. I distinctly saw 
the splash in the water caused by her submerging. 
56 



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pi aq 




PLOT AGAINST RESCUE SHIPS 

DODGED TWO SUBMARINES 

''I signaled to the engine room for every available 
inch of speed, and there was a prompt response. Then 
we saw the submarine come up astern of us with the 
periscope in line afterward. I now ordered full speed 
ahead, and we left the submarine slowly behind. The 
periscope remained in sight about twenty minutes. 
Our speed was perhaps two miles an hour better than 
the submarine could do. 

"No sooner had we lost sight of the submarine 
astern than I made out another on the starboard bow. 
This one was directly ahead and on the surface, not 
submerged. I starboarded hard away from him, he 
swinging as we did. About eight minutes later he 
submerged. I continued at top speed for four hours, 
and saw no more of the submarines. It was the ship's 
speed that saved her. That's all. 

"Both these submarines were long craft, and the 
second one had wireless masts. There is no question 
in my mind that these two submarines were acting 
in concert and were so placed as to torpedo any ship 
that might attempt to go to the rescue of the passengers 
of the Lusitania. 

"As a matter of fact, the Narragansett, as soon as 
she heard the S. 0. S. call, went to the assistance of the 
Lusitania. One of the submarines discharged a 
torpedo at her and missed her by a few feet. The 
Narragansett then warned us not to attempt to go to 
the rescue of the Lusitania, and I got her wireless call 
while I was dodging the two submarines. You can 
see that three ships would have gone to the assistance of 
the Lusitania had it not been for the two submarines. 

57 



PLOT AGAINST RESCUE SHIPS 



^' These German craft were, it seems to me, deliber- 
ately stationed off Old Head of Kinsale, at a point 
where all ships have got to pass, for the express pur- 
pose of preventing any assistance being given to the 
passengers of the Lusitania." 

NARRAGANSETT DRIVEN OFF 

That the British tank steamer Narragansett, one of the 
vessels that caught the distress signal of the Lusitania, 
was also driven off her rescue course by a torpedo from 
a submarine when she arrived within seven miles of 
fche spot where the Lusitania went down, an hour and 
three-quarters after she caught the wireless call for 
help, was alleged by the officers of the tanker, which 
arrived at Bayonne, N. J., on the same day that the 
Etonian reached Boston. 

The story told by the officers of the Narragansett 
corroborated the statements made by officers of the 
Etonian. They said that submarines were apparently 
scouting the sea to drive back rescue vessels when the 
Lusitania fell a victim to another undersea craft. 

The Lusitania's call for help was received by the 
Narragansett at two o'clock on the afternoon of May 7, 
according to wireless operator Talbot Smith, who 
said the message read: "Strong list. Come quick." 

When the Narragansett received the message she 
was thirty-five miles southeast of the Lusitania, having 
sailed from Liverpool the preceding afternoon at five 
o'clock for Bayonne. The message was deHvered 
quickly to Captain Charles Harwood, and he ordered 
the vessel to put on full steam and increase her speed 
from eleven to fourteen knots. The Narragansett 
58 



PLOT AGAINST RESCUE SHIPS 

changed her course and started in the direction of the 
sinking ship. 

TORPEDO FIRED AT NARRAGANSETT 

Second Officer John Letts, who was on the bridge, 
said he sighted the periscope of a submarine at 3.35 
o'clock, and almost at the same instant he saw a 
torpedo shooting through the water. The torpedo, 
according to the second officer, was traveling at great 
speed. 

It shot past the Narragansett, missing the stern by 
hardly thirty feet, and disappeared. The periscope 
of the submarine went out of sight at the same time, 
but the captain of the Narragansett decided not to 
take any chance, changed the course of his vessel so 
that the stern pointed directly toward the spot where 
the periscope was last sighted, and, after steering 
straight ahead for some distance, followed a somewhat 
zigzag course until he was out of the immediate sub- 
marine territories. 

Captain Harwood abandoned all thought of the 
Lusitania's caU for help, because he thought it was a 
decoy message sent out to trap the Narragansett into 
the submarine's path. 

''My opinion," said Second Officer Letts, ''is that 
submarines were scattered around that territory to 
prevent any vessel that received the S. O. S. caU of the 
Lusitania from going to her assistance." 

When attacked by the submarine the Narragansett 
had out her log, according to Second Officer Letts, and 
the torpedo passed under the line to which it was 
attached. The torpedo was fired from the submarine 

59 



PLOT AGAINST RESCUE SHIPS 

v/hen tlie undersea boat was mthin two hundred yards 
of the tanker. 

The Narragansett v/hen turned back had not sighted 
the wi-eck of the Lusitania, and her officers, who were 
led to believe the S. O. S. was a decoy, did not learn 
of the sinking of the Cunarder until the follomng 
morning at two o'clock. 

The Narragansett, under charter to the Standard 
Oil Company, is one of the largest tank steamships 
afloat. She is 540 feet long, has a sixty-foot beam, and 
12,500 tons displacement. 



60 



CHAPTER VI 

BRITISH JURY FINDS KAISER A 
MURDERER 

"the crime of wholesale murder" CAPTAIN 

turner's testimony SAW THE TORPEDO DOUBLE 

LOOKOUTS ON LINER NO WARNING GIVEN OTHER 

TESTIMONY CORONER HORGAN's STATEMENT. 

ONE OF the first ofiicial acts with reference to the loss 
of the Lusitania was the impanehng, on May 10, of a 
coroner's jury at Queenstown to fix the responsibilitj^ 
for the death of the passengers whose bodies were 
recovered and taken to that place. The inquest was 
conducted by Coroner John Horgan. The coroner's 
proceedings were comparatively brief, and were con- 
cluded with the return of the following verdict of the 
jury: 

"the crime of weolesale murder" 

"We find tha.t the deceased met death from pro- 
longed immersion and exhaustion in the sea eight 
miles south-southwest of Old Head of Eansale, Friday, 
May 7, 1915, owing to the sinldng of the Lusitania 
by torpedoes fired by a German submarine. 

"We find that this appalling crime was committed 
contrary to international law and the conventions of all 
civilized nations. 

"We also charge the officers of said submarine and 

63 



THE KAISER A MURDERER 

the Emperor and Government of Germany, under 
whose orders they acted, with the crime of wholesale 
murder before the tribunal of the civilized world. 

'^We desire to express sincere condolences and 
sjrmpathy mth the relatives of the deceased, the 
Cunard Company and the United States, many of 
whose citizens perished in this murderous attack on 
an unarmed liner." 

CAPTAIN turner's TESTIMONY 

Captain W. T. Turner, the Lusitania's commander, 
was the chief witness at the inquest. 

The Coroner asked the captain whether he had 
received a message concerning the sinking of a ship off 
Kinsaie by a submarine. Captain Turner replied that 
he had not. 

^^Did you receive any special instructions as to the 
voyage?" 

^'Yes, sir." 

'^Are you at liberty to tell us what they were?" 

"No, sir." 

''Did you carry them out?" 

''Yes, to the best of my ability." 

"You were aware threats had been made that the 
ship would be torpedoed?" 

"We were," the captain replied. 

"Was she armed?" 

"No, sir." 

"What precautions did you take?" 

"We had all the boats swung when we came within 
the danger zone, between the passing of Fastnet and 
the time of the accident." 
62 



THE KAISER A MURDERER 




63 



THE KAISER A MURDERER 
I' ■ " v~~ 

"Tell us in your ov/n words what happened after 
passing Fastnet." 

SAW THE TORPEDO 

''The weather was clear/' Captain Turner answered. 
"We were going at a speed of eighteen knots. I was 
on the port side and heard Second Officer Hefford 
call out, 'Here's a torpedo.' 

"I ran to the other side and saw clearly the vv'ake of 
a torpedo. Smoke and steam came up between the last 
two funnels. There Vv^as a slight shock. Immediately 
after the first explosion there was another report, but 
that may possibly have been internal. 

"I at once gave the order to lower the boats down to 
the rails, and I directed that women and children should 
get into them. I also had all the bulkheads closed. 

"I also gave orders to stop the ship," Captain Turner 
continued, "but we could not stop. We found that the 
engines were out of commission. It was not safe to 
lower boats until the speed was off the vessel. As a 
matter of fact, there was a perceptible headway on her 
up to the time she went down. 

"When she was struck she listed to starboard. I 
stood on the bridge when she sank, and the Lusitania 
went down under me. She floated about eighteen 
minutes after the torpedo struck her. My watch 
stopped at 2.36. I was picked up from among the 
wreckage and afterward was brought aboard a trawler. 

"No warship was convoying us. I saw no warship, 
and none was reported to me as having been seen. At 
the time I was picked up I noticed bodies floating on 
the surfaee, but saw no living persons. '^ 
64 



THE KAISER A MURDERER 

'^ Eighteen knots was not the normal speed of the 
Lusitania, was it?" he was asked. 

"At ordinary times," answered Captain Turner, 
"she could make twenty-five knots, but in war times 
her speed was reduced to twenty-one knots. My reason 
for going eighteen knots was that I wanted to arrive 
at Liverpool without stopping and within two or three 
hours of high water." 

DOUBLE LOOKOUTS ON LINER 

"Was there a lookout kept for submarines, having 
regard to previous warnings?" 

"Yes; we had double lookouts." 

"Were you going a zigzag course at the moment 
the torpedoing took place?" 

"No; it was bright weather, and land was clearly 
visible." 

"Was it possible for a submarine to approach without 
being seen?" 

"Ohjjyes, quite possible." 

"Something has been said regarding the impossibility 
of launching the boats on the port side?" 

"Yes," said Captain Turner, "owing to the listing 
of the ship." 

"How many boats were launched safely?" 

"I cannot say." 

"Were your orders promptly carried out?" 

"Yes." 

"Was there any panic on board?" 

"No, there was no panic at all; it was all most calm." 

By the foreman of the jury: 

"In the face of the warnings at New York that the 

5 65 



THE KAISER A MURDERER 

Lusitania would be torpedoed, did you make any 
application to the Admiralty for an escort?" 

"No, I left that to them. It is their business, not 
mine. I simply had to carry out my orders to go, and 
I would do it again." 

Captain Turner uttered the last words of this reply 
with great emphasis. 

By the coroner: 

''I am very glad to hear you say so, Captain," 

By a juryman: 

'^Did you get a wireless to steer your vessel in a 
northerly direction?" 

"No," replied Captain Turner. 

"Was the course of the vessel altered after the 
torpedoes struck her?" 

"I headed straight for land, but it was useless. 
Previous to this the water-tight bulkheads were closed. 
I suppose the explosion forced them open. I don't 
know the exact extent to which the Lusitania was 
damaged." 

"There must have been serious damage done to the 
water-tight bulkheads." 

"There certainly was, without doubt." 

"Were the passengers supplied with life-belts?" 

"Yes." 

"Were any special orders given that morning that 
life-belts be put on?" 

"No." 

NO WARNING GIVEN 

V "Was any warning given you before you were 
torpedoed." 
66 



THE KAISER A MURDERER 

''None whatever. It was suddenly done and 
finished." 

''If there had been a patrol boat aboard; might it 
have been of assistance?" 

"It might, but it is one of those things one never 
Imows." 

With regard to the threats against his ship, Captain 
Turner said he saw nothing except what appeared in 
the New York papers the day before the Lusitania 
sailed. He never had heard the passengers talking 
about the threats, he said. 

"Was a warning given to the lower decks after the 
ship had been struck?" Captain Turner was asked. 

"All the passengers must have heard the explosion," 
Captain Turner replied. 

Captain Turner in answer to another question said 
he received no report from the lookout before the 
torpedo struck the Lusitania. 

OTHER TESTIMONY 

Cornelius Horrigan, a waiter aboard the Lusitania, 
testified that it was impossible to launch boats on the 
starboard side because of the steamer's list. He went 
down with the ship, but came up and was rescued. 
Horrigan gave a partial identification of one of the 
bodies, which he thought to be that of Steward 
Cranston. 

The ship's bugler, Vernon Livermore, gave evidence 
that the water-tight compartments were closed, but 
thought that the explosion must have opened them. 
No one was able to identify a man in whose pocket was 
found a card bearing the name of John Wanamaker of 

67 



'- THE KAISER A MURDERER ^ 

New York, and in the left-hand corner '' Notary Pubhc 
MacQuerrie, Bureau of Information." 

CORONER HORGAN'S STATEMENT 

Coroner Horgan said that the first torpedo fired by 
the German submarine did serious damage to the 
Lusitania, but that, not satisfied with this, the Germans 
had discharged another torpedo. The second torpedo, 
he said, must have been more deadly, because it went 
right through the ship, hastening the work of destruc- 
tion. 

He charged that the responsibility '^lay on the 
German government and the whole people of Germany 
who collaborated in the terrible crime. 

''This is a case," he said, ''in which a powerful war- 
like engine attacked an unarmed vessel without warn- 
ing. It was simple barbarism and cold-blooded murder. 

"I purpose to ask the jury to return the only verdict 
possible for a self-respecting jury — that the men in 
charge of the German submarine were guilty of willful 
murder." 



68 



CHAPTER VII 

THE WORLD-WIDE INDICTMENT OF 

GERMANY FOR THE LUSITANIA 

ATROCITY 

VIEWS OF COLONEL ROOSEVELT, UNITED STATES 

SENATORS AND OTHER PROMINENT MEN OPINIONS 

OF THE NEWSPAPERS OF THE UNITED STATES AND 
CANADA VIEWS OF PROMINENT CANADIANS. 

NOT EVEN the invasion of peaceful Belgium, nor 
any of the other atrocities charged to the belligerent 
nations in the great war, stirred such universal and 
emphatic condemnation as the destruction of the 
Lusitania and over half its human freight of human 
lives. From all quarters of the globe the cry of amaze- 
ment, indignation and outrage arose. 

One of the first to express his feelings was Colonel 
Theodore Roosevelt, who said: ''This represents not 
merely piracy, but piracy on a vaster scale of murder 
than any old-time pirate ever practiced. 

''This is the warfare which destroyed Louvain and 
Dinant and hundreds of men, women and children in 
Belgium carried out to innocent men, women and 
children on the ocean and to our own feUow country- 
men and countrywomen who are among the sufferers. 

"It seems inconceivable that we should refrain from 
taking action in this matter, for we owe it not only to 
humanity, but to our own national self-respect." 

69 



INDICTMENT OF GERMANY 

Atlee Pomerene, U. S. Senator from Ohio, member of 
the Foreign Relations Committee, said: "To Americans 
the sinking of the Lusitania is the most deplorable 
incident of the European war. Every man with the 
milk of human kindness in his breast condemns any 
policy by any nation that leads to the slaughter without 
warning of babes, women and non-combatants." 

Morris Sheppard, U. S. Senator from Texas, said: 
"The sinking of the Lusitania is an illustration of the 
unspeakable horror of modern warfare, and will be a 
tremendous argument for general disarmament when 
the war closes. Let us handle the present situation 
with patience and calmness, trusting the President 
to take the proper course." 

John W. Griggs, former Governor of New Jersey and 
at one time Attorney-General of the United States, 
expressed himself emphatically on the Lusitania 
tragedy. He said: "The time for watchful waiting 
has passed. No investigating committee is needed. 
The facts are known. Action is demanded. A 
demand should be made at once without waiting by 
the government to get the finding of any investigations 
or inquests. Would you hesitate to act if a man slapped 
you in the face? I do not say what should be de- 
manded. That is for the government to decide. 
But an explanation should be demanded of Germany 
at once. The German submarine violated a law that 
even savages would recognize. I would hold Germany 
to account by proclaiming her an outlaw among the 
nations of the world. If the German government 
pleads that it was justified in this crime — which it 
will — it is then the duty of the United States to join 
70 



INDICTMENT OF GERMANY 

with other neutral nations and cut her off from the 
rest of the world." 

Jacob M. Dickinson, Secretary of War under President 
Taft, issued a statement in which he said: ''It is not 
likely that Germany will disavow the purpose to destroy 
the Lusitania with full knowledge of the fact that this 




"I'm Not Arguing With You, William; I'm Just Telling You!" 

involved many American lives. In view of the result 
and the warning given by our government to Germany, 
some proper action must be taken, or the American 
government will incur the contempt of. the world and 
the contempt of a vast number of its own people.'' 

''An act of barbarity without justification," was the 
expression of Frederick R. Coudert, of New York, an 
authority on international law, in referring to the 

71 



INDICTMENT OF GERMANY 

torpedoing of the Lusitania. Mr. Coudert said: "I 
make that statement on the supposition that Hves 
of citizens of the United States, a neutral nation, 
were destroyed by the sinking of the vessel. There 
is no justification, however, for ruthlessly sinking a 
merchant ship in the open seas when that vessel is not 
engaged in any manner as a belligerent vessel, and 
when the lives of non-combatants depend upon its 
safety. It would seem to be time for the government 
of this country to determine whether it will sit idly 
by and accept explanations that Americans were warned 
to keep off the steamer, or 'take a definite stand upon 
the rights of our citizens on the seas." 

The opinion of the nation on the sinking of the 
Lusitania is fairly represented by the following extracts 
from the editorial columns of leading newspapers 
throughout the United States: 

THE EAST 

New York Evening Post: ''Germany ought not to 
be left in a moment's doubt how the civilized world 
regards her latest display of 'f rightfulness.' It is a 
deed for which a Hun would blush, a Turk be ashamed 
and a Barbary pirate apologize. To speak of technicali- 
ties and the rules of war, in the face of such wholesale 
murder on the high seas, is a waste of time. The law 
of nations and the law of God have been alike trampled 
upon. The German government must be given to under- 
stand that no plea of military necessity will now avail 
it before the tribunal on which sits as judge the humane 
conscience of the world. As was declared by Germany's 
own representative at The Hague Congress, the late 
72 




NoN- Combatants Honobed With Theie Flags. 
The upper picture shows the body of an American victim of the 
Lusitania disaster carried through tlie streets of Queenstown covered with 
tlie Stars and Stripes. Below, Bintish soldiers laying the Union Jack over 
the coffins of victims recovered after the sinking of the Lusitania, (C Int. 
News Service.) 




One Ameeican Family Lost on the Lusitania. 
Wife and children of Paul Crompton. Not only hundreds of non- 
combatant men, but many women and children were intentionally sunk 
with the LujBitania. 



INDICTMENT OF GERMANY 

Marschall von Bieberstein, there are some atrocities 
which international law does not need to legislate 
against, since they fall under the instant and universal 
condemnation of mankind." 

New York Tribune: ''Failing these things, no 
American should misunderstand the meaning of the 
present crisis; no American should shrink from the 
facts that cannot be evaded or avoided. If Germany, 
has once andj^for all embarked upon a deliberate 
campaign of murder directed against American citizens, 
there can be but one consequence — the end is inescap- 
able." 

New York World: ''The main thing that concerns 
the American government today is not the subordinate 
question of reparation for the assassination of American 
citizens who were traveling on the Lusitajiia. It 
is the broader question of whether Germany can be 
brought to her senses and induced to abandon methods 
of warfare that are a crime against civilization and an 
affront to humanity." 

New York Times: "Neither in law nor in custom is 
there any extenuation for this act of monstrous in- 
humanity, no exception, no condition, can be made to 
shield it from the full force and condemnation it 
deserves and has received. And the warning adver- 
tisement published by the German Embassy here, 
being notice of an intent to commit a crime, is of no 
more avail for exculpation than a Black Hand letter 
of threat." 

New York Globe: "The duty of this government 
is sufficiently clear. In a formal and emphatic manner, 
not shrinking from explicit characterization, it should 

73 



INDICTMENT OF GERMANY 

denounce the greatest international outrage that has 
occurred since the Boxer savages of China, with the 
countenance of a treacherous government, attacked 
the women and children in the legations at Pekin." 

Philadelphia Pubhc Ledger: ^'As it stands the horror 
is almost inconceivable. There has been nothing like 
it before. One of the consequences of this war ought 
to be that nothing like it can ever happen again. 
Unless civilization is to relapse into barbarism, helpless 
non-combatants must not be exposed in such a fashion 
to the worst calamities of war." 

Boston Transcript : "The torpedoing of the Lusitania 
was not battle — it was massacre. To destroy an 
enemy ship, an unarmed merchant vessel of great 
value and power, is an act of war; to sink her in such 
a manner as to send hundreds of her passengers, among 
them many neutrals, to their death, is morally murder, 
and no technical military plea will avail to procure 
any other verdict at the bar of civilized public opinion." 

Boston Post: "The sinking of the British liner 
Lusitania by the torpedo of a German submarine 
with terrible loss of life, is the worst crime against 
civilization and humanity that the [modern world has 
ever known. It is a reversion to barbarism that will 
set the whole world, save perhaps the little world of 
its perpetrators, aflame with horror and indignation." 

Boston Traveler: "With the destruction of this 
queen of the ocean liners and the hundreds of lives 
of non-combatant men, women and children, also came 
the ruin of the last vestige of the structure of inter- 
national law and humane consideration that through 
the centuries mankind has been striving to erect. 
74 



INDICTMENT OF GERMANY 

The very life and honor of the nation depend upon the 
manner in which this attack upon its integrity is 
adjudicated, even if any adjudication of a civil nature 
will be deemed sufficient to permit of a peaceful, to say 
nothing of a friendly, adjustment." 

Hartford Courant: ''It is hard to find in the diction- 
ary the words strong enough to fit such conduct, and 
the effect of the destruction of the ship and the loss 
of lives will be to turn public sentiment more than ever 
against the Germans." 

Providence Journal: ''Scores of Americans were 
murdered yesterday on the high seas, by order of the 
German government. Men and women, citizens of 
the United States, traveling peaceably on a merchant 
steamer, have been sent to their death by the delib- 
erately planned act of Emperor William and his 
advisers." 

Providence Evening Tribune: "The torpedoing of 
the Lusitania, in that it destroyed innocent American 
lives, was a capital crime committed by Germany 
against the United States. A capital crime is a crime 
punishable by death. And in the case of a nation 
punitive death is usually administered by the process 
of war." 

THE WEST 

Chicago Herald: "International law contemplates 
the capture of merchant vessels. It contemplates 
their destruction under certain conditions. But it 
does not contemplate, provide for or justify destruction 
of the crews and passengers of such ships without 
giving them a chance for safety." 

75 



INDICTMENT OF GERMANY 



Minneapolis Journal: ''Germany intends to become 
the outlaw of nations. Perhaps we are yet to witness 
savagerj^ carried to its ultimate perfection." 

Minneapolis Tribune: ''The sinking of the Lusitania 
is outside the rules of civilized warfare. The President 
will have the loyal support of the people of this country 
in whatever course wise counsel may find it necessary 
to pursue." 

Denver Rocky Mountain News: "Mankind will 
hang its head in shame. It was not war. It is not 
England that suffers; it is not the relatives and friends 
of the dead that suffer only; the people of Germany 
will suffer for the deed of yesterday." 

THE SOUTH 

Washington Post: "No warrant whatever, in law or 
morals, can be found for the willful destruction of an 
unarmed vessel, neutral or enemy, carrying passengers, 
without giving them an opportunity to leave the 
vessel. Germany stands indicted on this charge, and 
if it is proved the world will not exonerate that nation 
for the awful destruction of innocent Hfe." 

Baltimore American: "Americans must and will 
resent the invasion of their rights, and in this there 
can be no division of American sentiment." 

Charleston News and Courier: "The destruction of 
the Lusitania has been accomplished, it now appears, 
with the most diabolically cruel deliberation. If this 
shall be established as a fact, there can be no question 
that the wrath of the American people will flame — and 
should flame." 

New Orleans Times-Picayune : ' ' What is Washington 
76 



INDICTMENT OF GERMANY 

going to do about it? Slaughter of American citizens 
in contravention of all laws of warfare has placed the 
United States in a position that is intolerable. Our 
people were wantonly done to death." 

SENTIMENT OF THE CANADIAN PRESS 

Even sterner was the tone of the editorial opinion 
of the Canadian press. In many cases the actual inter- 
vention of the United States in the war was advocated. 
The following excerpts are characteristic of the opinion 
of the newspapers of Canada: 

Toronto Daily News: ^^This fresh display of Teu- 
tonic Kultur raises anew the question as to how long 
the Washington government is going to be scorned 
and trampled upon by the most unscrupulous and 
barbarous race of modern times. What effect will 
this deliberate destruction of hundreds of American 
citizens in cold blood have upon public sentiment 
throughout the United States? Can President Wilson 
forever stand aside while international law and inter- 
national moral standards are cast to the winds by a 
brutal and infuriated people?" 

Toronto Mail and Empire: "The Washington 
government knows why the American citizens whose 
names are on the passenger list of the Lusitania trusted 
themselves to the ship despite the warnings of the 
Kaiser's agents and accomplices in New York. Those 
American men and women disregarded the warnings, not 
because they believed the Germans incapable of tor- 
pedoing a passenger vessel, but because they felt that 
the neutrality and puissance of their nation would be 
respected. The Washington government cannot let 

77 



INDICTMENT OF GERMANY 

these American citizens who rehed on its protection 
go unavenged." 

Toronto Globe: ^'But what of the United States. 
Does President Wilson propose to let German sub- 
marines destroy the lives of American citizens because 
they choose to cross the Atlantic in a passenger ship 
flying the British flag? Does he still think the mad 
dog of Europe can be trusted at large? Is it not 
almost time to join in hunting down the brute?" 

Toronto Daily Star: ''The sinking of the Lusitania 
was not necessary to prove what was already abun- 
dantly demonstrated — that there is no length of 
vindictiveness to which Germany will not go. There 
is no lesson to be drawn from it except that Germany 
must be fought to a finish, and that all the resources 
of the allied countries must be marshalled for that 
purpose. We are engaged in no ordinary war. The 
very existence of civilization is at stake. The civilized 
world is threatened by a nation that has deliberately 
gone back to barbarism and given a free rein to criminal 
instincts. Denunciation and rebuke are of no avail in 
such a case. The conflict is between a powerful 
criminal and those who desire to live under the reign of 
law; and the time has come for every man who believes 
in law, in every nation, to fight for the life of civiliza- 
tion." 

VIEWS OF PROMINENT CANADIANS 

That the torpedoing of the Lusitania was not an act 
of war in the technical sense committed by Germany 
as against the United States, was the view expressed 
by Mr. McGregor Young, professor of interna- 
78 



INDICTMENT OF GERMANY 

tional law in Toronto University, who said in an 
interview : 

''Certain acts are acts of war in the technical 
sense — acts, that is to say, which touch the state 
qua state. But the torpedoing of the Lusitania does 
not come within that category, so far as the United 
States is concerned. It is not an act such as is 
not compatible with friendly relations between that 
country and Germany. The Lusitania was a British 
ship, and the American passengers on board her were 
really an incident, as it were. Whether it would be 
consistent with the United States' self-respect to put 
up with Germany's action is another matter. That is 
a question as to which a nation must judge for itself." 

Mr. E. F. B. Johnston, K.C., gave his opinion as 
follows: 

"The Lusitania was a vessel owned by a British 
company, carrying on business in England. It 
was not under the control of the United States. 
Individual citizens choosing to travel by this boat 
would do so at their own risk, and so far as loss is 
concerned, the United States as a nation would not 
perhaps be legally affected. But if citizens of the 
United States are not to be protected by their own 
Government, a wholesale slaughter might be justified 
on the ground that the ship was English. It seems to 
me to be a question of policy. And, as such, one 
would say that it was the duty of the United States 
to protect, as far as possible, their own citizens." 

On the Sunday following the destruction of the 
Lusitania reference to the disaster was made by count- 
less clergymen throughout Canada. Varying senti- 

79 



INDICTMENT OF GERMANY 

merits were expressed in their sermons, but perhaps 
the keynote was sounded by the Rev. W. H. Hincks, 
D.D., pastor of Trinity Methodist Church, Toronto, 
who alluded to the subject as follows: 

"Neutral nations headed by the President of the 
United States seven months ago entered a united 
diplomatic protest against the violation of the branch 
of The Hague Convention which has to do with the 
killing of civilians. The greatest thinkers in Great 
Britain have taken the view that the United States 
can do more good as a neutral by exerting her influence 
in the interest of humanity and in accordance with 
The Hague Convention than in entering unprepared 
into the war. Our duty is to pray for the President 
of the United States, that, surrounded by the wisest 
of his advisers, he may take action with other neutral 
nations to prevent the repetition of such a crime." 



80 



CHAPTER VIII 

AMERICA'S PROTEST AGAINST 
UNCIVILIZED WARFARE 

PRESIDENT Wilson's great responsibility — the 

NOTE TO GERMANY — ^ATTACKS CALLED CONTRARY 

TO RULES OF WARFARE ^WARNING TO GERMANY 

RECALLED SUBMARINE WARFARE ON COMMERCE 

CONDEMNED PUBLISHED WARNING DECLARED NO 

EXCUSE FOR ATTACK PROMPT, JUST ACTION BY 

GERMANY EXPECTED THE WHOLE NATION BEHIND 

THE PRESIDENT SOUTH AND WEST RESOUNDED 

WITH APPROVAL. 

RARELY has a man in any office of life had laid upon 
his shoulders so great a responsibility as was thrust 
upon President Wilson by the destruction of more than 
a hundred American lives in the Lusitania disaster. 
No heart was more sorely stricken than his by the 
dastardly calamity, and yet it is characteristic of the 
man, and to his everlasting credit, that when impetuous 
minds were urging him to hasty action, his reply was, 

"We must think first of humanity." 

A man of lesser stature, mentally and spiritually, 
would have required a host of counselors. In the great 
crisis which he faced President Wilson assumed for 
himself full responsibility. There was the rare spectacle 
of a man great enough and sure enough to determine 
wholly within his own mind upon the action he should 

ft 81 



AMERICA'S PROTEST 

take. He sought no advice; he eschewed advisers. 
In solitude he evolved his supreme duty. 

When, in the seclusion of his own soul, he had fixed 
upon his policy, he proceeded in the same way to put 
it into words. It is a thing perhaps without precedent 
before the administration of President Wilson that the 
note to the German government, which has become a 
historic document, was written originally by the 
President in shorthand. After he had set down the 
communication in this way he transcribed it on his 
own typewriter. No official or clerk of the Wliite 
House had any part in the preparation of the docu- 
ment until after it had been presented to the members 
of the Cabinet. Not even Secretary Bryan saw it 
in advance of that time. 

THE NOTE TO GERMANY 

The full text of President Wilson's note, dated May 
13, and communicated over the name of Secretary of 
State Bryan, is as follows: 

''The Secretary of State to the American Ambassador at 

Berlin: 

^'Please call on the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and 
after reading to him this communication, leave with 
him a copy: 

"In view of the recent acts of the German authorities 
in violation of American rights on the high seas, which 
culminated in the torpedoing and sinking of the 
British steamship Lusitania on May 7, 1915, by which 
over one hundred American citizens lost their lives, it is 
clearly wise and desirable that the government of the 
82 



AMERICA'S PROTEST 

United States and the imperial German government 
should come to a clear and full understanding as to the 
grave situation which has resulted 

''The sinking of the British passenger steamship 
Falaba by a German submarine on March 28, through 
which Leon C. Thresher, an American citizen, was 
drowned; the attack on April 28 on the American 
vessel Gushing by a German aeroplane; the torpedoing 
on May 1 of the American vessel Gulflight by a German 
submarine, as a result of which two or more American 
citizens met their death; and, finally, the torpedoing 
and sinking of the steamship Lusitania, constitute a 
series of events which the government of the United 
States has observed with growing concern, distress and 
amazement. 

ATTACKS CALLED CONTRARY TO RULES OF WARFARE 

"Recalling the humane and enlightened attitude 
hitherto assumed by the imperial German government 
in matters of international right, and particularly with 
regard to the freedom of the seas; having learned to 
recognize the German views and the German influence 
in the field of international obligation as always 
engaged upon the side of justice and humanity; and 
having understood the instructions of the imperial 
German government to its naval commanders to be 
upon the same plane of humane action prescribed by 
the naval codes of other nations, the government of 
the United States was loath to beheve — it cannot 
now bring itself to believe — that these acts, so absolutely 
contrary to the rules, the practices and the spirit of 
modern warfare, could have the countenance or sanc- 

83 



AMERICA'S PROTEST 

tion of that great government. It feels it to be its 
duty, therefore, to address the imperial German gov- 
ernment concerning them with the utmost frankness 
and in the earnest hope that it is not mistaken in 
expecting action on the part of the imperial German 
government which will correct the unfortunate impres- 
sions which have been created and vindicate once more 
the position of that government with regard to the 
sacred freedom of the seas. 

WARNING TO GERMANY RECALLED 

"The government of the United States has been 
apprised that the imperial German government con- 
sidered themselves to be obliged by the extraordinary 
circumstances of the present war and the measures 
adopted by their adversaries in seeking to cut Germany 
off from all commerce, to adopt methods of retaliation 
whichfgo much beyond the ordinary methods of warfare 
at sea, in the proclamation of a war zone from which 
they have warned neutral ships to keep away. This 
government has already taken occasion to inform the 
imperial German government that it cannot admit 
the adoption of such measures or such a warning of 
danger to operate as in any degree an abbreviation of 
the rights of American shipmasters or of American 
citizens bound on lawful errands as passengers on 
merchant ships of belligerent nationality; and that it 
must hold the imperial German government to a 
strict accountability for any infringement of those 
rights, intentional or incidental. It does not under- 
stand the imperial German government to question 
those rights. It assumes, on the contrary, that the 
84 



x\MERICA'S PROTEST 

imperial German government accept, as of course, the 
rule that the lives of non-combatants, whether they 
be of neutral citizenship or citizens of one of the nations 
at war, cannot lawfully or rightfully be put in jeopardy 
by the capture or destruction of an unarmed merchant- 
man, and recognize, also, as all other nations do, the 
obligation to take the usual precaution of visit and 
search to ascertain whether a suspected merchantman 
is in fact of belligerent nationality or is in fact carrying 
contraband of war under a neutral flag. 

SUBMARINE WARFARE ON COMMERCE CONDEMNED 

"The government of the United States, therefore, 
desires to call the attention of the imperial German 
government with the utmost earnestness to the fact 
that the objection to their present method of attack 
against the trade of their enemies lies in the practical 
impossibility of employing submarines in the destruc- 
tion of commerce without disregarding those rules of 
fairness, reason, justice and humanity, which all 
modern opinion regards as imperative. It is practically 
impossible for the officers of a submarine to visit a 
merchantman at sea and examine her papers and cargo. 
It is practically impossible for them to make a prize 
of her; and, if they cannot put a prize crew on board of 
her, they cannot sink her without leaving her crew and 
all on board of her to the mercy of the sea in her smaU 
boats. These facts, it is understood, the imperial 
German government frankly admit. 

"We are informed that in the instances of which we 
have spoken time enough for even that poor measure of 
safety was not given, and in at least two of the cases 

85 



AMERICA'S PROTEST 

cited not so much as a warning was received. Mani- 
festly, submarines cannot be used against merchant- 
men, as the last few weeks have shown, without an 
inevitable violation of many sacred principles of 
justice and humanity. 

"American citizens act within their indisputable 
rights in taking their ships and in traveling wherever 
their legitimate business calls them upon the high seas, 
and exercise those rights in what should be the well- 
justified confidence that their lives will not be endan- 
gered by acts done in clear violation of universally 
acknowledged international obligations, and certainly 
in the confidence that their own government will 
sustain them in the exercise of their rights. 

PUBLISHED WARNING DECLARED NO EXCUSE FOR 

ATTACK 

"There was recently published in the newspapers of 
the United States, I regret to inform the imperial 
German government, a formal warning, purporting 
to come from the imperial German embassy at Wash- 
ington, addressed to the people of the United States, 
and stating in effect that any citizen of the United 
States who exercised his right of free travel upon the 
seas would do so at his peril if his journey should take 
him within the zone of waters within which the imperial 
German navy was using submarines ^ against the 
commerce of Great Britain and France, notwithstand- 
ing the respectful but very earnest protest of this 
government, the government of the United States. 
I do not refer to this for the purpose of calling the 
attention of the imperial German government at this 
86 



AMERICA'S PROTEST 

time to the surprising irregularity of a communication 
from the imperial German embassy at Washington 
addressed to the people of the United States through 
the newspapers, but only for the purpose of pointing 
out that no warning that an unlawful and inhumane 
act will be committed can possibly be accepted as an 
excuse or palliation for that act, or as an abatement 
of the responsibility for its commission. 

"Long acquainted as this government has been with 
the character of the imperial German government and 
with the high principles of equity by which they have in 
the past been actuated and guided, the government of 
the United States cannot believe that the commanders 
of the vessels which committed these acts of lawlessness 
did so except under a misapprehension of the orders 
issued by the imperial German naval authorities. 
It takes it for granted that, at least within the practical 
possibilities of every such case, the commanders even 
of submarines were expected to do nothing that would 
involve the lives of non-combatants or the safety 
of neutral ships, even at the cost of failing of their 
object of capture or destruction. 

"It confidently expects, therefore, that the imperial 
German government will disavow the acts of which 
the government of the United States complains; that 
they will make reparation so far as reparation is 
possible for injuries which are without measure, and 
that they will take immediate steps to prevent the 
recurrence of anything so obviously subversive of the 
principles of warfare for which the imperial German 
government have in the past so wisely and so firmly 
contended. 

87 



AMERICA'S PROTEST 

PROMPT, JUST ACTION BY GERMANY EXPECTED 

"The government and people of the United States 
look to the imperial German government for just, 
prompt and enlightened action in this vital matter 
with the greater confidence because the United States 
and Germany are bound together not only by special 
ties of friendship, but also by the explicit stipulations 
of the treaty of 1828 between the United States and 
the Ejngdom of Prussia. 

'^Expressions of regret and offers of reparation in case 
of the destruction of neutral ships sunk by mistake, 
while they may satisfy international obligations, if 
no loss of life results, cannot justify or excuse a prac- 
tice, the natural and necessary effect of which is to 
subject neutral nations and neutral persons to new and 
immeasurable risks. 

"The imperial German government will not expect 
the government of the United States to omit any 
word or any act necessary to the performance of its 
sacred duty of maintaining the rights of the United 
States and its citizens and of safeguarding their free 
exercise and enjoyment. "Bryaat " 

THE WHOLE NATION BEHIND THE PRESIDENT 

With anxiety, even if with confidence, the American 
people waited the publication of this note. Then they 
read, and the whole country resounded with enthusias- 
tic support. More than at almost any previous period 
in the history of the United States, more certainly 
than at the outbreak of any previous foreign war, the 
nation stood sohdly behind the President. According 
88 




Zeppelin Device foe Dropping Bombs. 
An armored car is suspended by three cables from the Zeppelin airship 
to a distance of several thoxisand feet below the monster air-craft, which 
la concealed in the douda above. (Sphere oopr.) 




Falling to Earth Like a Blazing Meteor. 
This stirring- picture represents a German aerojjlane of the type called 
Aviatik, beaten in a fight high up in the air by the famous French Aviator 
Garros, plunging to earth in flames, turning and. turning like a falling star. 



AMERICA'S PROTEST 

to the New York Tribune he "acted with calm states- 
manhke directness, deserved well of his own nation 
and earned the respect of the world." The New 
York Sun, commenting on the note, said: "The 
President has spoken firmly. The country, supporting 
him as firmly, awaits without passion the German 
reply," and the New York Herald in an editorial 
declared that President Wilson had "expressed the 
unanimous voice of the great American republic." 
"Everyone trusts the President because he has shown 
himself worthy of trust," was the comment of the 
Philadelphia Public Ledger. "The Government's 
position in this case is the country's position. It is 
not extreme, yet it covers the ground," spoke the 
Springfield Republican, and the Christian Science 
Monitor went so far as to state that there was " probably 
no body of opinion in the United States which will be 
dissatisfied either with the tone or temper of the 
message." 

SOUTH AND WEST RESOUNDED WITH APPROVAL 

No less enthusiastic was the approval of the press 
in the South and West. "The citizenry of this country 
is with Wilson," stoutly declared the Baltimore Sun, 
and the Louisville Post maintained: "There are no 
neutrals in America now. We are all earnest supporters 
of the President, who by patience and fortitude has 
established his right to lead a free people." The note, 
according to the Atlanta Journal, was "the voice 
of the American people proclaiming in terms unmis- 
takable their conscience and their will." 

"Whatever the fate of our relations with Germany, 

89 



AMERICA'S PROTEST 

the President undoubtedly has voiced the sentiment of 
the nation upon the use of the submarine and as to the 
rights of neutrals on the high seas," was the comment 
of the Chicago Tribune. The note was described by 
the Cleveland News as "all that Americans could 
wish," and according to the San Francisco Chronicle, 
it commended itself '^to the common sense of people 
unafflicted with inflammable hatreds." "It is probable 
that no document of state ever came nearer reflecting 
the sentiment of the American people," commented the 
Denver Times, and the Indianapolis News proclaimed: 
"It is not simply the government, but the nation that 
speaks through the document. There is no one who 
does not hope for a peaceful adjustment of the diffi- 
culty." The Minneapolis Journal, after analyzing the 
note and especially the last strong paragraph of protest, 
declared: "The American people will stand by these 
words." 

If no president of the United States ever faced so 
grave a crisis, certainly none ever received more unani- 
mous support. If there were any murmurs of dis- 
satisfaction they were too faint to be heard above the 
chorus of approval. 



90 



CHAPTER IX 

THE GERMAN DEFENSE FOR THE DE- 
STRUCTION OF THE LUSITANIA 

BLAMES BRITAIN FOR MISUSE OE FLAG INVESTI- 
GATING CASES OF GUSHING AND GULFLIGHT 

DECLARES SHIP CARRIED MOUNTED CANNON SAYS 

IT ACTED IN JUSTIFIED SELF-DEFENSE FINAL 

DECISION ON DEMANDS DEFERRED AMERICAN 

OPINION OF GERMAN EXCUSES EVASIVE AND 

INSINCERE ^ATTACKS ON AMERICAN VESSELS MUST 

CEASE SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT. 

THE GERMAN defense for the destruction of the 
Lusitania and for other marine atrocities committed 
against non-combatant vessels in the famous, or infam- 
ous, war zone was contained in a note to the American 
government, transmitted May 31, in reply to President 
Wilson's note of protest. The full text of the German 
note is as follows : 

"The undersigned has the honor to submit to Ambas- 
sador Gerard the following answer to the communica- 
tion of May 13 regarding the injury to American 
interests through German submarine warfare. 

"The Imperial government has subjected the com- 
munication of the American government to a thorough 
investigation. It entertains also a keen wish to 
co-operate in a frank and friendly way in clearing up 
a possible misunderstanding which may have arisen 

91 



THE GERMAN DEFENSE 

in the relations between the two governments through 
the events mentioned by the American government. 

^'Regarding, firstly, the cases of the American 
steamers Gushing and Gulflight. The American 
embassy has already been informed that the German 
government has no intention of submitting neutral 
ships in the war zone, which are guilty of no hostile 
acts, to attacks by a submarine or submarines or 
aviators. On the contrary, the German forces have 
repeatedly been instructed most specifically to avoid 
attacks on such ships. 

BLAMES BRITAIN FOR MISUSE OF FLAGS 

''If neutral ships in recent months have suffered 
through the German submarine warfare, owing to 
mistakes in identification, it is a question onl}^ of 
quite isolated and exceptional cases, which can be 
attributed to the British government's abuse of flags, 
together with the suspicious or culpable behavior of 
the masters of the ships. 

''The German government, in all cases in which it 
has been shown by its investigations that a neutral 
ship, not itself at fault, was damaged by German sub- 
marines or aviators, has expressed regret over the 
unfortunate accident and, if justified by conditions, has 
offered indemnification. 

INVESTIGATING CASES OF GUSHING AND GULFLIGHT 

"The cases of the Gushing and the Gulflight will 
be treated on the same principles. An investigation 
of both cases is in progress, the result of which will 
presently be communicated to the embassy. The 
92 



THE GERMAN DEFENSE 

investigation can, if necessary, be supplemented by an 
international call on the international commission of 
inquiry as provided by Article III of The Hague 
agreement of October 18, 1907. 

^'When sinking the British steamer Falaba, the 
commander of the German submarine had the inten- 
tion of allowing the passengers and crew a full oppor- 
tunity for a safe escape. Only when the master did 
not obey the order to heave-to, but fled and summoned 
help by rocket signals, did the German commander 
order the crew and passengers by signals and megaphone 
to leave the ship within ten minutes. He actually 
allowed them twenty-three minutes time and fired 
the torpedo only when suspicious craft were hasten- 
ing to the assistance of the Falaba. 

"Regarding the loss of life by the sinking of the 
British passenger steamer Lusitania, the German 
government has already expressed to the neutral 
governments concerned its keen regret that citizens of 
their states lost their lives. 

"On this occasion, the Imperial government, how- 
ever, cannot escape the impression that certain impor- 
tant facts having a direct bearing on the sinking of 
the Lusitania may have escaped the attention of the 
American government. 

"In the interest of a clear and complete under- 
standing, which is the aim of both governments, the 
Imperial government considers it first necessary to 
convince itself that the information accessible to both 
governments about the facts of the case is complete 
and in accord. 

"The government of the United States proceeds on 

93 



THE GERMAN DEFENSE 

the assumption that the Lusitania could be regarded 
as an ordinary unarmed merchantman. The Imperial 
government allows itself in this connection to point 
out that the Lusitania was one of the largest and 
fastest British mercha.nt ships, built with government 
funds as an auxiliary cruiser and carried expressly as 
such in the 'navy list' issued by the British admiralty. 

DECLARES SHIP CARRIED MOUNTED CANNON 

''It is further known to the Imperial government 
from trustworthy reports from its agents and neutral 
passengers, that for a considerable time practically all 
the more valuable British merchantmen have been 
equipped with cannon and ammunition and other 
weapons and manned with persons who have been 
specially trained in serving guns. The Lusitania, too, 
according to information received here, had cannon 
aboard, which were mounted and concealed below decks. 

"The Imperial government, further, has the honor 
to direct the particular attention of the American 
government to the fact that the British admiralty in 
a confidential instruction issued in February, 1915, 
recommended its mercantile shipping not only to seek 
protection under neutral flags and disguising marks, 
but also, while thus disguised, to attack German sub- 
marines by ramming. As a special incitation to 
merchantmen to destroy submarines, the British govern- 
ment also offered high prizes and has already paid such 
rewards. 

"The Imperial government in view of these facts 
indubitably known to it, is unable to regard British 
merchantmen in the zone of naval operations specified 
94 



THE GERMAN DEFENSE 

by the admiralty staff of the German navy as 'unde- 
fended.' German commanders consequently are no 
longer able to observe the customary regulations of the 
prize law, which they always followed. 

'^ Finally the Imperial government must point out 
particularly that the Lusitania on its last trip, as on 
earlier occasions, carried Cariadian troops and war 
material, including no less than 5,400 cases of ammuni- 
tion intended for the destruction of the brave German 
soldiers who are fulfilling their duty with self-sacrifice 
and devotion in the Fatherland's service. 

SAYS IT ACTED IN JUSTIFIED SELF-DEFENSE 

"The German government believes that it was act- 
ing in justified self-defense in seeking with all the 
means of warfare at its disposition to protect the fives 
of its soldiers by destroying ammunition intended for 
the enemy. 

"The British shipping company must have been 
aware of the danger to which the passengers aboard the 
Lusitania were exposed under these conditions. The 
company, in embarking them notwithstanding this, 
attempted deliberately to use the lives of American 
citizens as protection for the ammunition aboard, and 
acted against the clear provisions of the American 
law, which expressly prohibits the forwarding of pas- 
sengers on ships carrying ammunition, and provides a 
penalty therefor. The company therefore is wantonly 
guilty of the death of so many passengers. 

"There can be no doubt according to definite report 
of the submarine's commander, which is further con- 
firmed by all other information, that the quick sinking 

95 



THE GERMAN DEFENSE 

of the Lusitania is primarily attributed to the explosion 
of the ammunition shipment caused by a torpedo. 
The Lusitania's passengers would otherwise, in all 
human probability, have been saved. 

''The Imperial government considers the above- 
mentioned facts important enough to recommend them 
to the attentive examination of the American govern- 
ment. 

FINAL DECISION ON DEMANDS DEFERRED 

''The Imperial government, while withholding its 
final decision on the demands advanced in connection 
with the sinking of the Lusitania until receipt of an 
answer from the American government, feels impelled 
in conclusion to recall here and now that it took cog- 
nizance with satisfaction of the mediatory proposals 
submitted by the United States government to Berlin 
and London as a basis for a modus vivendi for con- 
ducting the maritime warfare between Germany and 
Great Britain. 

''The Imperial government by its readiness to enter 
upon a discussion of these proposals, then demonstrated 
its good intentions in ample fashion. The reahzation 
of these proposals was defeated, as is well known, by 
the declinatory attitude of the British government. 
^ "The undersigned takes occasion, etc. 

"Jagow." 

aaierican opinion of german excuses 

The effect of the German note on American opinion 
was to create a sense of angry disappointment. The 
newspapers were a unit in calling it evasive. It "does 
96 






G3 . T '—I 






Sapping and Mining the Enemy's Teenches. 
When the hostile trenches are near together an open zig-zag trench 
is dug to a point very close to the enemy's line, then a covered gallerj^ is 
excavated to a point almost under the hostile trench. 




rtBK»* j.«>>^. 




ORCANiSAriON 0? DSFEhCES BY JOlNtNG CRATtS WiTrt SrtcLL-HOLES 




Gaining a Foot of Gkound Per Hour. 
Here a charge of explosive is placed and fired from a distance by an 
electric wire. At the same instant the men charge over the ground ^;nd 
Qccupy the ruined trench pf the enem^. (II. L, N^ws copr.) 



THE GERMAN DEFENSE 

United States' Note of Protest and 
Germany's Reply Compared 



President Wilson Demanded: 

Practical cessation of submarine 
attacks on non-combatant vessels. 

Observance of the rule of visit 
and search in the case of all 
suspected merchantmen before 
any such ship shall be subjected 
to capture or destruction. 

Protection of non-combatants 
who may be on suspected mer- 
chantmen. 

Disavowal of official Grerman 
responsibility for injury to Ameri- 
cans in the Gushing, Gulflight and 
Lusitania cases. 

Reparation, so far as reparation 
is possible, for irreparable damage. 

Immediate steps by Germany 
to prevent the recurrence of 
incidents "so obviously subver- 
sive of the principfes of warfare." 

The first three items, as noted 
above, were stated not as actual 
demands, but as assumptions of 
what Grermany would agree to in 
view of previous communications 
from this coimtry in the matter of 
what is allowable in maritime war- 
fare according to previously ac- 
knowledged international law and 
the dictates of humanity. 



Germany Conceded: 

No intention of attacking neu- 
tral ships not guilty of hostile 
acts in "war zone." 

Regrets and indemnity where 
neutral ship, not itself at fault, is 



Attacks on the American ships 
Gulflight and Gushing uninten- 
tional, the circumstances being 
rigidly investigated. 

Keen regret at loss of lives of 
neutral citizens on Lusitania. 

Germany Evaded: 

Issue as to humanitarian aspect 
and facts in Lusitania case. 

Giving of any direct promise to 
abandon submarine warfare. 

Any attempt to justify such 
warfare, except as "self-defense." 

Germany Countered: 

By raising question as to Lusi- 
tania being an "auxiliary armed 
cruiser," and not of the "unde- 
fended merchantmen" class. 

By accusing Cunard company 
of using American citizens to pro- 
tect the "ammunition" carried 
by Lusitania, and of being guilty 
of their dteath. 



97- 



THE GERMAN DEFENSE 

not meet the issue/' declared the New York World, 
while the New York Times viewed it as being ''not 
responsive to our demand. It tends rather to becloud 
understanding." The Albany Knickerbocker Press 
denounced it as "an answer which purposely does not 
answer. Germany evidently is playing for time." 
This thought was reiterated by the Pittsburgh Gazette- 
Times, which pointed out that "it is palpable that 
Germany proposes to consume time by raising points 
which call for further correspondence, in the meanwhile 
continuing in the course to which the United States 
has objected." 

The Chicago Herald more specifically pointed out the 
evasiveness of the German reply, claiming that it 
"fails wholly to meet the main points at issue, both 
the specific point of the slaughter of American citizens 
on the Lusitania and the general point of the impossi- 
bihty of employing submarines in the destruction of 
commerce without disregarding rules of fairness, reason, 
justice and humanity — established principles of inter- 
national law." 

EVASIVE AND INSrNCERE 

The Philadelphia PubUc Ledger also criticized it for 
ignoring altogether "the protest in the name of human- 
ity against submarine warfare upon non-combatants," 
and the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune laid bare the 
"absolute ignoring of the vital principles set forth in 
the Wilson letter," adding that "there is a half con- 
temptuous, albeit entirely courteous, suggestion of 
'Well, they are still dead; now, what do you propose 
to do about it?'" 
98 



THE GERMAN DEFENSE 



The German claim that the Lusitania was in effect 
a warship, with mounted guns, and carried ammunition 
and Canadian soldiers, was emphatically denied in a 
public statement by Dudley Field Malone, collector of 
the port of New York, and the New York World 
vehemently an- 
swered the Ger- 
man claim by de- 
claring that 'Hhe 
Lusitania was a 
warship in the 
same way that 
Belgium was an 
aggressor against 
Germany; in the 
same way that 
the University of 
Louvain and 
Rheims Cathedral 
were 'fortifica- 
tions'; in the same way that various seaside resorts 
in England, raided by Germans, were 'defended.'" 




No Use. 



ATTACKS ON AMERICAN VESSELS MUST CEASE 

Many newspapers joined in calling for more drastic 
action on the part of the United States government. 
"We have but one thing in mind," announced the New 
York Tribune, ''that these crimes shall cease. Any 
answer, therefore, which fails to guarantee their stop- 
page as a condition precedent to diplomatic rectifica- 
tion cannot be expected to satisfy the just expectation 
of the United States." The Washington Herald fol- 

99 



THE GERMAN DEFENSE 

lowed this by saying: ''The patience of the American 
people in the face of contemptuous disregard of their 
rights and a series of outrages against their countrymen 
has been sublime, but surely it has a limit. Surely a 
way will be found, without much longer delay, to 
compel Germany to cease her attacks on American 
vessels engaged in neutral commerce and to guarantee 
the safety of American lives and property." 

SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT 

On the other hand there was a strong element that 
counseled coolness and restraint. ''This is not a time," 
declared the Albany Knickerbocker Press, "to suggest 
to President Wilson what ought to be done. It is not 
a time to become impatient. It is a time for restraint. 
Nothing can be gained now by playing upon the strings 
of excitable public opinion in America. The President 
must find his way out and every true American must 
support him loyally." Echoing this sentiment, the 
Springfield Republican added, "but the German 
government may fairly be required to give definite 
assurances that during the period of the negotiations 
no more torpedo attacks on passenger ships which 
may be carrying American citizens will be permitted." 



100 



CHAPTER X 
SWIFT REVERSAL TO BARBARISM 

By Vance Thompson 

culture swept away breaking point of civ- 
ilization barbarism and women ^after bar- 
barism, what? 

[The following article is reproduced by the courtesy of the 
New York Times.] 

THERE is in Brussels — if the Uhlans have spared it — 
a mad and monstrous picture. It is called "A Scene 
in Hell, " and hangs in the Musee Wiertz. And what 
you see on the canvas are the fierce and blinding 
flames of hell; and amid them looms the dark figure 
of Napoleon, and around him the wives and mothers 
and maids of Belgium scream and surge and clutch 
and curse — taking their posthumous vengeance. 

And since Napoleon was a notable emperor in his 
time, the picture is not without significance today. 
Paint in another face, and let it go at that. 

War is a bad thing. Even hell is the worse for it. 

War is a bad thing; it is a reversal, sudden and 
complete, to barbarism. That is what I would get 
at in this article. One day there is civilization, au- 
thentic, complex, triumphant; comes war, and in a 
moment the entire fabric sinks down into a shme 

101 



SWIFT REVERSAL TO BARBARISM 

of mud and blood. In a day, in an hour, a cycle of 
civilization is canceled. What you saw in the morn- 
ing was suave and ordered life; and the sun sets on 
howling savagery. In the morning black-coated men 
lifted their hats to women. Ere nightfall they are slash- 
ing them with sabres and burning the houses over 
their heads. And the grave old professors who were 
droning platitudes of peace and progress and humani- 
tarianism are screaming, ere today is done, shrill 
senile clamors for blood and ravage and rapine. 

A reversal to barbarism. 

Here; it is in the tea-room of the smartest hotel in 
Munich; war has come; high- voiced women of title 
chatter over their teacups; comes swaggering in the 
Crown Prince Ruprecht of Bavaria; he has just 
had his sabre sharpened and has girt his abdomen for 
war. His wife runs to him. And she kisses the sabre 
and shouts: '^ Bring it back to me covered with blood — 
that I may kiss it again!" And the other high-voiced 
women flock to kiss the sword. 

A reversal to barbarism. 

It has taken place in an hour; but yesterday these 
were sweet patrician ladies, who prattled of humanity 
and love and the fair graces of life; and now they 
would fain wet their mouths with blood — laughingly, 
as harlots wet their mouths with wine. 

The unclean and vampirish spirit of war has swept 
them back to the habits of the cave-dweUing ages of 
the race. In an hour the culture so painfully acquired 
in slow generations has been swept away. Royaltj^, 
in the tea-room of the ''Four Seasons," is one with 
the blonde nude female who romped and fought in 
102 



SWIFT REVERSAL TO BARBARISM 

the dark Teutonic forests ere Caesar came through 
Gaul. 

Reversal to barbarism. 

War is declared; and in Berlin the Emperor of Ger- 
many rides in an open motor car down Unter den 
Linden; he is in full uniform, sworded, erect, hie- 
ratic; and at his side sits the Empress — she the good 
mother, the housewife, the fond grandmother — gar- 
mented from head to foot in cloth the color of blood. 

Theatricalism? No. The symbolism is more sig- 
nificant. The symbol bears a savage significance. 
It marks, as a red sunset, the going down of civiliza- 
tion and the coming of the dark barbarism of war. 

BREAKING POINT OF CIVILIZATION 

There was war; and the whole machinery of civili- 
zation stopped. 

Modern civilization is the most complex machine 
imaginable; its infinite cogged wheels turn endlessly 
upon each other; and perfectly it accomplishes its 
multifarious purposes; but smash one wheel and it 
all falls apart into muddle and ruin. The declaration 
of war was like thrusting a mailed fist into the intri- 
cate works of a clock. There was an end of the per- 
fected machine of civilization. Everything stopped. 

That was a queer world we woke in. A world that 
seemed new, so old it was. 

Money had ceased to exist. It seemed at that 
moment an appalling thing. I was on the edge and 
frontier of a neutral state. I had money in a bank. 
It ceased to be money. A thousand-franc note was 
paper. A hundred-mark note was rubbish. British 

103 



SWIFT REVERSAL TO BARBARISM 

sovereigns were refused at the railway station. The 
Swiss shopkeeper would not change a Swiss note. 
What had seemed money was not money. 

Values were told in terms of bread. 

It was a swift and immediate return to the economic 
conditions of barbarism. Metals were hoarded; and 
where there had been trade there was barter. And it 
all happened in an hour, in that first fierce panic of 
war. 

Traffic stopped with a clang as of rusty iron. The 
mailed fist had dislocated the complex machinery of 
European traffic. Frontiers which had been mere 
landmarks of travel became suddenly formidable and 
impassable barriers, guarded by harsh, hysterical men 
with bayonets. 

War makes men brave and courageous? Rubbish! 
It fills them with the cruelty of hysteria and the panic 
of the unknown. I am not talking of battle, which 
is a different thing. But I say the men who guarded 
the German frontier — and I dare say every other 
frontier — in the first stress of war, were wrenched and 
shaken with veritable hysteria. At St. Ludwig and 
Constance those husky soldiers in iron-mongery, with 
shaved heads and beards and outstanding ears, fell 
into sheer savagery, not because they were bad and 
savage men, but simply because they were hysterical. 
The fact is worth noting. 

It explains many a bloody and infamous deed in 
the tragic history of sad Alsace and of little Belgium. 
The war-begotten reversal to savagery brought with 
it all the hysteria of the savage man. The sentries 
at St. Ludwig struck with muskets and sabres because 
104 



SWIFT REVERSAL TO BARBARISM 

they were hysterical with terror of the new, unknown 
state into which they had been plunged, not because 
they were not men like you and me. Surely the savage 
Uhlan who ravaged the cottages of Alsace was your 
brother and mine, as were the Magyar beyond the Dan- 
ube and the Cossack at Kovna. Only they had gone 
back to the terrors of the man who dwelt in a cave. 

Traffic stopped; and when it stopped civilization 
fell away from the travelers. That was strange. 
Take the afternoon of the day war was declared, the 
date being Aug. 1, in the year of our Lord 1914, and 
the hour 7.30 p. m., Berlin time. It was the last 
train that reached the frontier from Paris. Between 
Delle and Bicourt lies a neutral zone about three 
kilometers^say, nearly two and a half miles — in ex- 
tent. On one side France and invasion and terror 
and war; on the other side of the zone the relative 
safety of Switzerland. Six hundred passengers poured 
out of the French train at noon into that neutral 
zone and started to walk to Swiss safety. A blazing 
August sun; a road of pebbles and stinging, upblown 
dust. 

The passengers had been permitted to bring on the 
train only what luggage they could carry; so they were 
laden vfith bags and coats, dressing bags and jewel 
cases — all they had deemed most valuable. Mostly 
women. German ladies fleeing for refuge; Russian 
ladies; English, American; and a crowd of men, 
urgent to reach their armies, German, Swiss, Russian, 
Austrian, Servian, Italian; withal many of the kind 
of American men who go to Switzerland in August. 

And the caravan started in the dust and heat of a 

105 



SWIFT REVERSAL TO BARBARISM 

desert. A woman let fall her heavy bag and plodded 
on. Another threw away her coats. Men shook off 
their bundles. The heat was stifling. And through 
the clouds of dust a panic terror crept. It was the 
antique terror of the God Pan — the God All; it was a 
fear as immense as the sky. 

A woman screamed and began to run, throwing 
away everything she had safeguarded so she might 
run with empty hands. A score followed her. Men 
began to run. They thrust the women aside, cursing; 
and ran. And for over two miles the road was cov- 
ered thick with coats and bags, with packages and 
jewel cases. The greed of possession died out in the 
causeless fear. 

These hoarse, pushing men, these sweating, shame- 
less women had gone back 10,000 years into prehis- 
toric savagery. Lightly they threw away all the 
baubles and gewgaws civilization had fashioned for 
adorning and disguising their raw humanity, and the 
habits of civilization as well. 

They had touched but the outermost edge of war, 
and their very clothes fell off them. 

BARBARISM AND WOMEN 

War; and it takes eighty-four hours to make a 
twelve-hour journey from the Alps to Paris; the 
cable is dead; the telegraph is dumb; letters go only 
when smuggled over the frontiers by couriers; you 
look about you and find you are in a mediaeval and 
mysterious world. You stand amid the melancholy 
ruins of canceled cycles. The mailed fist of war has 
smashed your world to pieces. You do not know it. 
106 



SWIFT REVERSAL TO BARBARISM 

- The man you thought of as a brother looks at you 
with eyes of passionate hatred; you have eaten bread 
and, salt together; you have drunk together; you 
have been uplifted by the same books; you have been 
sublimed by the same music; but he is a German, 
and your blood was made in another land, and he 
looks at you with suspicion and hate — perhaps you 
are a spy. (The spy mania! Dear Lord, what absurd, 
bloody, and abominable stories I could write of this 
madness which has Europe by the throat, this mad- 
ness which is only another form of war hysteria!) 
A reversal to barbarism; yoa and the man who was 
your friend have gone back to the fear and hatred 
of primitive savages, meeting at the corner of a dark 
wood. All of humanity we have acquired in the slow 
way of evolution sloughs off us. 

We are savages once more. For science is dead. 
All the laboratories are shut, save those where poison 
is brewed and destruction is put up in packages. 
Education has ceased, save that fierce Nietzschean 
education which declares: '^The weak and helpless 
must go to the wall; and we shall help them go. " All 
that made life humanly fair is hidden in the fetid 
clouds of war where savages (in terror and hysteria) 
grope for each other's throats. 

The glory of war— rot! The heroism of war — rot! 
The scarlet and beneficent energies of war — rot! 
When you look at it close what you see are hulking 
masses of brutes with fear behind them prodding 
them on, or wild and splendid savages, hysterical with 
hate, battling to save their hearth fires and women 
from the oncoming horde. Reversal to barbarism. 

107 



SWIFT REVERSAL TO BARBARISM 

Think it over. Upon whom falls the stress of war? 
Not upon the soldier. He is killed and fattens the 
soil where he falls; or he is maimed and hobbles off 
toward a pension or beggary — both tolerable things; 
anyway he has drunk deep of cruelty and terror and 
may go his way. By rare good grace he may have 
been a hero. In other words, he may have been a 
Belgian — which is a word like a decoration, a name 
to make one strut like a Greek of Thermopylae — and 
become thus a permanent part of the world's finest 
history. 

:{( ^ ^ H: ^ 4: 

I would like to write here the name of a friend, 
Charles Flamache of Brussels. He was twenty-one 
years old. He was an artist who had already tasted 
fame. He had known the love of woman. That his 
destiny might be fulfilled he died, the bhthe, brave 
boy, in front of Liege. It was the right death at the 
right time — ere yet the massed Prussians had roUed 
in fire and blood over his fair small land. Wherefore, 
hail and farewell, young hero! 

But upon whom falls the stress of war? 

In a time of barbarism those who suffer are always 
the weak. War is in its essence (as said Nietzsche, 
the German philosopher of ''world power") an attack 
upon weakness. The weakest suffer most. 

I saw children born on cinder heaps, and I saw them 
die; and the mothers die gasping hke she dogs in a 
smother of flies. 

Some day the story of what was done in Alsace will 
be written and the stories of Vise and Aerschot and 
108 



SWIFT REVERSAL TO BARBARISM 

Onsmael and Louvain will seem pale and negligible; 
but not now — five generations to come will whisper 
them in the Vosges. 

What I would emphasize is that in the natural 
state of barbarism induced by the war the woman falls 
back to her antique state of she animal. In thousands 
of years she has been made into a thing of exquisite 
and mysterious femininity; in a day she is thrown 
back to kinship with the she dog. Slashed with 
sabres, pricked with lances, she is a mere thing of 
prey. 

Surely not the dear Countess and Baroness? Of 
course not. War is made in the palaces, but it does 
not attack the palaces. The worth of every nation 
dwells in the cottage; and it is upon the cottage 
that war works its worst infamy. Go to Alsace 
and see. 

^_ Pillage, loot, incendiarism, ''indemnity" — ^you can 
read that in the records of the invasion of Belgium; 
that is war; it is all right if war is to be, for all this 
talk of chivalrous consideration for foes and regard 
for international law is all nonsense; necessity, as 
Bethmann-Hollweg said, knows no law, and neces- 
sity has always been the tyrant's plea; it is the busi- 
ness of a soldier to kill and terrify; if he restricts his 
killing and terrifying he is a bad soldier and bad at 
his work of barbarism; but — 

There is a more sinister side to Europe's laose into 
barbarism. The women are paying too dear. And 
to make them pay dear is not really the business of 
a soldier, not even a bad soldier. Yet the woman is 
paying, God knows. A tragic payment. 

109 



SWIFT REVERSAL TO BARBARISM 

AFTER BARBARISM WHAT? 

One morning at dawn — it was at Amberieu — I saw 
the long trains go by carrying the German wounded 
and the German prisoners, who had been taken in the 
battles of the Vosges. There were 2,400 taken on 
toward the south. There were French nurses with 
the wounded. I saw water and fruit and chocolate 
given to the prisoners. 

This was early in the war. The sheer lapse into 
barbarism had not yet come. Soon the German news- 
papers announced: 

^' Great concern is expressed in press and public 
utterances lest prisoners of war receive anything in 
the line of favored treatment. Newspapers have 
conducted an angry campaign against women who 
have ventured at the railway station to give coffee or 
food to prisoners of war passing through; commanding 
officers have ordered that persons 'demeaning them- 
selves by such unworthy conduct' are to be immedi- 
ately ejected from the stations, and in response to 
public clamor official announcements have been issued 
that such prisoners in transport receive only bread 
and water. " 

And the French followed suit; no "coddling" of 
prisoners; back to barbarism, the lessons of humanity 
forgot and savagery come again. 

Civilization in the old world is smashed. I have 
traversed the ruins; and my feet are still dirty with 
mud and blood. But I can tell you what is going to 
come out of that welter of ruin. There will come a 
sane and righteous hatred of militarism. What will 
be surely destroyed is Csesarism. Prophecy? This 
110 



SWIFT REVERSAL TO BARBARISM 

is not prophecy; I am stating an assured fact. Even 
at this hour of hysterical and relentless warfare there 
hes deep in the heart of the democracy of Europe a 
consuming hatred of militarism. 

Drops of water (or blood) do not more naturally 
flow into each than did the English hatred of Caesar- 
ism blend with the high French hatred of the evil 
thing; and when the palaces have done fighting, the 
cottages of Europe, from the Baltic to the Mediter- 
ranean and from the Black Sea to the Hebrides, will 
proclaim its destruction. 

And you will see it; you will see Csesarism drowned 
in the very blood it has shed. And the German, mark 
you, will not be the least bitter of the foes of militar- 
ism. He will be indeed a relentless foe. 

Reversal to barbarism, say you? A shuddering 
lapse into savagery? 

Quite true; that is the state of Europe over the 
fairest and most highly civilized provinces. The 
picture of Sir John French strolling up and down 
the battle line smoking a cigarette does not give a 
fair idea of it; nor do you get it from the Kaiser on a 
hilltop surveying his massed war bullocks surging 
forth patiently to battle; all that belongs to the pic- 
ture books of war. 

The real thing is dirtier. 



Ill 



CHAPTER XI 
BELGIUM'S BITTER NEED 

By Sir Gilbert Parker 

the martyrdom of belgium — ^abyss of want 

and woe no work and heavy war taxes 

patience of belgians crying need of food 

belgian people wards of the world. 

[Sir Gilbert Parker went abroad at the request of the Ameri- 
can Committee for the Relief of Belgium, and the following 
graphic statement and appeal to the American people, dated 
December 5, 1914, appeared in the New York Times.] 

SINCE the beginning of the war the hearts of all 
humane people have been tortured by the sufferings 
of Belgium. For myself the martyrdom of Belgium 
had been a nightmare since the fall of Liege. Whoever 
or whatever country is to blame for this war, Belgium 
is innocent. Her hands are free from stain. She has 
kept the faith. She saw it with the eyes of duty and 
honor. Her government is carried on in another land. 
Her king is in the trenches. Her army is decimated, 
but the last decimals fight on. 

Her people wander in foreign lands, the highest and 
lowest looking for work and bread; they cannot look 
for homes. Those left behind huddle near the ruins 
of their shattered villages or take refuge in towns 
which cannot feed their own citizens. 
112 



BELGIUM'S BITTER NEED 

ABYSS OF WANT AND WOE 

Many cities and towns have been completely des- 
troyed; others, reduced or shattered, struggle in vain 
to feed their poor and broken populations. Stones 
and ashes mark the places where small communities 
lived their peaceful lives before the invasion. The 
Belgian people live now in the abyss of want and woe. 

All this I knew in England, but knew it from the 
reports of others. I did not, could not, know what the 
destitution, the desolation of Belgium was, what were 
the imperative needs of this people, until I got to 
Holland and to the borders of Belgian territory. 
Inside that territory I could not pass because I was 
a Britisher, but there I could see German soldiers, the 
Landwehr, keeping guard over what they caU their 
new German province. Belgium a German province! 

There at Maastricht I saw fugitives crossing the 
frontier into Holland with aU their worldly goods on 
their shoulders or in their hands, or with nothing at all, 
seeking hospitality of a little land which itself feels, 
though it is neutral, the painful stress and cost of the 
war. There, on the frontier, I was standing between 
Dutch soldiers and German soldiers, so near the 
Germans that 1 could almost have touched them, so 
near three German officers that their conversation as 
they saluted me reached my ears. 

I begin to understand what the sufferings and needs 
of Belgium are. They are such that the horror of it 
almost paralyzes expression. I met at Maastricht 
Belgians, representatives of municipalities, who said 
that they had food for only a fortnight longer. And 
what was the food they had? No meat, no vegetables, 

113 



BELGIUM'S BITTER NEED 

but onl}^ one-third of a soldier's rations of bread for 
each person per day. At Liege, as I write, there is 
food for only three days. 

Wliat is it the people of Belgium ask for? They 
ask for bread and salt, no more, and it is not forth- 
coming. They do not ask for meat; they cannot get 
it. They have no fires for cooking, and they do not 
beg for petrol. Money is of little use to them, because 
there is no food to be bought with money. 

Belgium under ordinary circumstances imports five- 
sixths of the food she eats. The ordinary channels 
of sale and purchase are closed. They cannot buy 
and sell if they would. Representatives of Belgian 
communities told me at Maastricht that the crops were 
taken from their fields — the wheat and potatoes — 
and were sent into Germany. 

NO WORK, AND HEAVY WAR TAXES 

There is no work. The factories are closed because 
they have not raw material, coal, or petrol, because 
they have no markets. 

And yet war taxes are falling with hideous pressure 
upon a people whose hands are empty, whose work- 
shops are closed, whose fields are idle, whose cattle 
have been taken, or compulsorily purchased without 
value received. 

In Belgium itself the misery of the populace is 
greater than the misery of the Belgian fugitives in 
other countries, such as Holland, where there have 
come since the faU of Liege one and a haK million of 
fugitives. To gauge what that misery in Belgium is, 
think of what even the fugitives suffer. I have seen 
114 



BELGIUM'S BITTER NEED 

in a room without fire, the walls damp, the floor 
without covering, not even straw, a family of nine 
women and eight children, one on an improvised bunk 
seriously ill. Their home in Belgium was leveled with 
the ground, the father killed in battle. 

Their food is coffee and bread for breakfast, potatoes 
for dinner, with salt — and in having the salt they were 
lucky — ^bread and coffee for supper. Insufficiently 
clothed, there by the North Sea, they watched the 
bleak hours pass, with nothing to do except cling 
together in a vain attempt to keep warm. 

Multiply this case by hundreds of thousands and 
you will have some hint of the people's sufferings. 

In a lighter on the River Maas at Rotterdam, with- 
out windows, without doors, with only an open hatch- 
way from which a ladder descends, several hundred 
fugitives spend their nights and the best parts of their 
days in the iron hold, forever covered with moisture, 
leaky when rain comes, with the floor never dry, and 
pervasive with a perpetual smell like the smell of a 
cave which never gets the light of day. Here men, 
women, and children were huddled together in a pro- 
miscuous communion of misery, made infinitely more 
pathetic and heartrending because none complained. 

At Rosendaal, at Scheveningen, Eysden, and Flush- 
ing, at a dozen other places, these ghastly things are 
repeated in one form or another. Holland has shel- 
tered hundreds of thousands, but she could not in a 
moment organize even adequate shelter, much less 
comforts. 

In Bergen-op-Zoom, where I write these words, 
there have come since the fall of Antwerp 300,000 

115 



BELGIUM'S BITTER NEED 

hungry marchers, with no resources except what they 
carry with them. This little town of 15,000 people 
did its best to meet the terrible pressure, and its 
citizens went without bread themselves to feed the 
refugees. How can a small municipality suddenly 
deal with so vast a catastrophe? Yet slowly some 
sort of order was organized out of chaos, and when 
the Government was able to establish refugee camps 
through the military the worst conditions were mod- 
erated, and now, in tents and in vans on a fortunately 
situated piece of land, over 3,000 people live, so far as 
comforts are concerned, like Kaffirs in Karoo or 
aborigines in a camp in the back blocks of Australia. 
The tents are crammed with people, and life is reduced 
to its barest elements. Straw, boards, and a few 
blankets and dishes for rations — that constitutes the 
menage. 

Children are born in the hugger-mugger of such 
conditions, but the good Holland citizens see that the 
children are cared for and that the babies have milk. 
Devoted priests teach the children, and the value of 
military organization illuminates the whole panoply of 
misery. Yet the best of the refugee camps would 
seem to American citizens like the dark and dreadful 
life of an underworld, in which is neither work, pur- 
pose, nor opportunity. It is a sight repugnant to 
civilization. 

PATIENCE OP BELGIANS 

The saddest, most heartrending thing I have ever 
seen has been the patience of every Belgian, whatever 
his state, I have met. Among the thousands of 
116 



BELGIUM'S BITTER NEED 

refugees I have seen in Holland, in the long stream 
that crossed the frontier at Maastricht and besieged 
the doors of the Belgian Consul while I was there, 
no man, no woman railed or declaimed against the 
horror of their situation. The pathos of lonely, 
staring, apathetic endurance is tragic beyond words. 
So grateful, so simply grateful, are they, every one, 
for whatever is done for them. 

None begs, none asks for money, and yet on the 
faces of these frontier refugees I saw stark hunger, 
the weakness come of long weeks of famine. One man, 
one fortunate man from Verviers, told me he could 
purchase as much as 2s. 8d. worth of food for himself, 
his wife and child for a week. 

Think of it, American citizens! Sixty-six cents' 
worth of food for a man, his wife, and child for a whole 
week, if he were permitted to purchase that much! 
Sixty-six cents! That is what an average American 
citizen pays for his dinner in his own home. He 
cannot get breakfast, he can only get half a breakfast, 
for that at the Waldorf or the Plaza in New York. 

This man was only allowed to purchase that much 
food if he could, because if he purchased more he 
would be taking from some one else, and they were 
living on rations for the week which would represent 
the food of an ordinary man for a day. A rich man 
can have no more than a poor man. It is a democracy 
of famine. 

CRYING NEED OF FOOD 

There is enough food wasted in the average Ameri- 
can household in one day to keep a Belgian for a fort- 

U7 



BELGIUM'S BITTER NEED 

night in health and strength. They want in Belgium 
30,000 tons of food a month. That is their normal 
requirement. The American Relief Committee is 
asking for 8,000 tons a month, one-quarter of the 
normal requirements, one-half of a soldier's rations 
for each Belgian. The American Committee needs 
$5,000,000 a month until next harvest. It is a huge 
sum, but it must be forthcoming. 

Of all the great powers of the world the United 
States is the only one not at war or in peril of war. 
Of all the foremost nations of the world the United 
States is the only one that can save Belgium from 
starvation if she wiU. She was the only nation that 
Germany would allow a foothold for humanity's and for 
Christ's sake in Belgium. Such an opportunity, such 
responsibility, no nation ever had before in the history 
of the world. Spain and Italy join with her, but the 
initiative and resources and organization are hers. 

Around Belgium is a ring of steel. Within that 
ring of steel is a disappearing and forever disappear- 
ing population. Towns hke Dendermonde, that were 
of 10,000 people, have now 4,000, and in Dendermonde 
1,200 houses have fallen under the iron and fire of war. 
Into that vast graveyard and camp of the desolate 
only the United States enters with an adequate and 
responsible organization upon the mission of humanity. 

No' such opportunity was ever given to a people, 
no such test ever came to a Christian people in all the 
records of time. Will the American nation rise to 
the chance given to it to prove that its civilization is a 
real thing and that its acts measure up with its 
inherent and professed Christianity? 
118 



BELGIUM'S BITTER NEED 



I am a profound believer in the great-heartedness 
of the United States, and there is not an American 
of German origin who ought not gladly and freely 
give to the relief of people who, unless the world 

feeds them, must _^ ___„ __„_ 

be the remnant of 'iMm!S^?W^'':'^-'^''S^ 

a nation; and the ^^^W%-:l^-\:'' — '^^i}^^^^^mff^--^. 

world in this case is ^ 3^1 - " 'Z:M^^^^^^:^'- 

the United States. 

She can give most. 

The price of one 
good meal a week 
for a family in an 
American home 
will keep a Bel- 
gian alive for a 
fortnight. 

Probably the 
United States has 
18,000,000 homes. 
How many of 
them wiU deny 
themselves a meal 
for martyred Bel- 
gium? The mass of the American people do not 
need to deny themselves anything to give to Belgium. 
The whole standard of living on the American conti- 
nent, in the United States and Canada, is so much 
higher than the European standard that if they low- 
ered the scale by one-tenth just for one six months 
the Belgian problem would be solved. 

I say to the American people that they cannot 

119 




Beinging Up Reinfohcements. 



BELGIUM'S BITTER NEED 

conceive what this strain upon the populations of 
Europe is at this moment, and, in the cruel grip of 
winter, hundreds of thousands will agonize till death 
or relief comes. In Australia in drought times vast 
flocks of sheep go traveling with shepherds looking 
for food and water, and no flock ever comes back as 
it went forth. Not in flocks guided by shepherds, 
but lonely, hopeless units, the Belgian people take 
flight, looking for food and shelter, or remain paralyzed 
by the tragedy fallen upon them in their own land. 

BELGIAN PEOPLE WARDS OF THE WORLD 

Their sufferings are majestic in simple heroism and 
uncomplaining endurance. So majestic in proportion 
ought the relief to be. The Belgian people are wards 
of the world. In the circumstances the Belgian people 
are special wards of the one great country that is 
secure in its peace and that by its natural instincts 
of human sympathy and love of freedom is best suited 
to do the work that should be done for Belgium. 
If every millionaire would give a thousand, if every 
man with 1100 a month would give $10, the American 
Committee for the Relief of Belgium, with its splendid 
organization, its unrivaled efiiciency, through which 
flows a tide of human sympathy, would be able to 
report at the end of the war that a small nation in 
misfortune had been saved from famine and despair 
by a great people far away, who had responded to the 
call, "Come over and help us!" 



120 



CHAPTER XII 

JAMES BRYCE'S REPORT ON SYSTEMATIC 
MASSACRE IN BELGIUM 

REPORT OF COMMISSION TO INVESTIGATE GERMAN 

OUTRAGES A HARROWING RECITAL TELLS OF 

MASSACRES "KILLED IN MASSES " THE TALE OF 

LOUVAIN TREATMENT OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN 

CALLS KILLING DELIBERATE " SPIRIT OF WAR DE- 
IFIED" — THE commission's CONCLUSIONS. 

VISCOUNT BRYCE, former British Ambassador 
at Washington, was appointed chairman of a special 
government commission to investigate and report on 
'^ outrages alleged to have been committed by German 
troops." Associated with Lord Bryce on the commis- 
sion were Sir Frederick Pollock, Sir Edward Clarke, 
Sir Alfred Hopkinson, H. A. L. Fisher, Vice-Chancellor 
of the University of Sheffield; Harold Cox, and Kenelm 
E. Digby. The commission was appointed by Premier 
Asquith on January 22, 1915. The document is 
considered as probably the most severe arraignment 
made of the German military sweep across Belgium, 
mainly because of the position of Viscount Bryce as a 
historian, and also because of the care with which 
the investigation was made, the great number of 
witnesses whose testimony was examined, and the mass 
of evidence submitted with the report of the commis- 
sion. 

121 



MASSACRE IN BELGIUM 

The report makes an official document of sixty-one 
printed pages, or upward of 30,000 words, accompanied 
by maps showing the various routes of the army and 
the chief scenes of desolation. It states at the outset 
that 1,200 witnesses have been examined, the deposi- 
tions being taken by examiners of legal knowledge and 
experience, though without authority to administer 
an oath. The examiners were instructed not to '^lead" 
the witnesses, and to seek to bring out the truth by 
cross-examination and otherwise. The commission 
also submitted extracts from a number of diaries taken 
from the German dead, chiefly German soldiers and in 
some cases officers. 

A HARROWING RECITAL 

Taking up conditions at Liege at the outset of the 
war, the report gives a harrowing recital of occurrences 
at various points in the devastated territory. At 
Herve on August 4, 1914, the report says, "the murder 
of an innocent fugitive civilian was a prelude to the 
burning and pillage of the town and of other villages 
in the neighborhood; to the indiscriminate shooting 
of civilians of both sexes and to the organized military 
execution of batches of selected males. Thus some 
fifty men escaping from burning houses were seized, 
taken outside the town and shot. At Melen, in one 
household alone the father and mother (names given) 
were shot, the daughter died after being repeatedly 
attacked and the son was wounded. 

"In Soumagne and Micheroux very many civilians 
were summarily shot. In a field belonging to a man 

named E , fifty-six or fifty-seven were put to death. 

122 



MASSACRE IN BELGIUM 

A German officer said, 'You have shot at us.' One of 
the villagers asked to be allowed to speak, and said, 
'If you think these people fired, kill me, but let them 
go.' The answer was three volleys. The survivors 
were bayoneted. Their corpses were seen in the field 
that night by another witness. One at least had been 
mutilated. These were not the only victims in Sou- 
magne. The eye-witness of the massacre saw, on his 
way home, twenty bodies, one that of a girl thirteen. 
Another witness saw nineteen corpses in a meadow. 

''At Heure le Romain all the male inhabitants, 
including some bed-ridden old men, were imprisoned 
in the church. The burgomaster's brother and the 
priest were bayoneted. The village of Vise was com- 
pletely destroyed. Officers directed the incendiaries. 
Antiques and china were removed from the houses 
before their destruction, by officers, who guarded the 
plunder, revolver in hand. 

TELLS OF MASSACRES 

"Entries in a German diary show that on August 
10 the German soldiers gave themselves up to debauch- 
ery in the streets of Liege, and on the night of the 
20th a massacre took place in the streets. . . . Though 
the cause of the massacre is in dispute, the results are 
known with certainty. The Rue des Pitteurs and 
houses in the Place de I'llniversite and the Quai des 
Pecheurs were systematically fired with benzine; and 
many inhabitants were burned alive in their houses, 
their efforts to escape being prevented by rifle fire. 
Twenty people were shot while trying to escape, 
before the eyes of one of the witnesses. The Liege 

123 



MASSACRE IN BELGIUM 

Fire Brigade turned out, but was not allowed to extin- 
guish the fire. Its carts, however, were usefully 
employed in removing heaps of civilian corpses to the 
Town Hall." 

Taking up the Valleys of the Meuse and Sambre, the 
report gives lengthy details of terrible conditions 
described by witnesses at Andenne, and says: 

"About four hundred people lost their Hves in this 
massacre, some on the banks of the Meuse, where they 
were shot according to orders given, and some in the 
cellars of the houses where they had taken refuge. 
Eight men belonging to one family were murdered. 
Another man was placed close to a machine gun which 
was fired through him. His wife brought his body home 
on a wheelbarrow. The Germans broke into her house 
and ransacked it. 

" A liair-dresser was murdered in his kitchen where 
he was sitting with a child on each knee. A paralytic 
was murdered in his garden. After this came the 
general sack of the town. Many of the inhabitants 
who escaped the massacre were kept as prisoners and 
compelled to clear the houses of corpses and bury them 
in trenches. These prisoners were subsequently used 
as a shelter and protection for a pontoon bridge which 
the Germans had built across the river and were 
so used to prevent the Belgian forts from firing 
upon it. 

"A few days later the Germans celebrated a 'fete 
nocturne' in the square. Hot wine, located in the 
town, was drunk, and the women were compelled to 
give three cheers for the Kaiser and to sing ' Deutsch- 
land iiber Alles.'" 
124 



MASSACRE IN BELGIUM 

"killed in masses" 

Similar details are recited at much length in reference 
to the districts of Namur, Charleroi and the town of 
Dinant. At the latter point, the report says, " Unarmed 
civilians were killed in masses. We have no reason 
to believe that the civilian population of Dinant 
gave any provocation or that any other defense can 
be put forward to justify the treatment inflicted 
upon its citizens." 

The commission stated that it had received a great 
mass of evidence on "scenes of chronic outrage" in the 
territory bounded by the towns Aerschot, Malines, 
Vilvorde and Lou vain. It stated that the total number 
of outrages was so great that the commission could 
not refer to them all. 

"The commission is specially impressed by the 
character of the outrages committed in the smaller 
villages. Many of these are exceptionally shocking 
and cannot be regarded as contemplated or prescribed 
by responsible commanders of the troops by whom they 
were commanded. Evidence goes to show that deaths 
in these villages were due not to accident but to delib- 
erate purpose. The wounds were generally stabs or 
cuts, and for the most part appear to have been inflicted 
with a bayonet. 

"In Sempst the corpse of a man with his legs cut 
off, who was partly bound, was seen by a witness, who 
also saw a girl of seventeen in great distress dressed 
only in a chemise. She alleged that she herself and 
other girls had been dragged into a field, stripped 
naked and attacked, and that some of them had been 
killed with a bayonet." 

125 



MASSACRE IN BELGIUM 

Taking up conditions at Aerschot and the surround- 
ing district during September, the report says: 

''At Haecht several children had been murdered; 
one of two or three years old was found nailed to the 
door of a farmhouse by its hands and feet, a crime which 
seems almost incredible, but the evidence for which we 
feel bound to accept. At Eppeghem the body of a 
child of two was seen pinned to the ground with a 
German lance. The same witness saw a mutilated 
woman alive near Weerde on the same day." 

A chapter is given to the terrible conditions at 
Louvain, where the report states, ''massacre, fire and 
destruction went on. . . . Citizens were shot and 
others taken prisoners and compelled to go with the 
troops. Soldiers went through the streets saying, 'Man 
hat geschossen' (some one has fired on us). 

THE TALE OF LOUVAIN 

"The massacre of civilians at Louvain was not 
confined to its citizens. Large crowds of people were 
brought into Louvain from the surrounding districts, 
not only from Aerschot and Gelrod, but also from other 
places. For example, a witness describes how many 
women and children were taken in carts to Louvain, 
and there placed in a stable. Of the hundreds of 
people thus taken from the various villages and brought 
to Louvain as prisoners, some were massacred there, 
others were forced to march along with citizens of 
Louvain through various places, some being ultimately 
sent to the Belgian lines at Malines, others were taken 
in trucks to Cologne, others were released. 

"Ropes were put around the necks of some and they 
126 



MASSACRE IN BELGIUM 

were told they would be hanged. An order then came 
that they were to be shot instead of hanged. A firing 
squad was prepared, and five or six prisoners were put 
up, but were not shot. . . . This taking of the inhab- 
itants in groups and marching them to various places 
must evidently have been done under the direction of a 
higher military authority. The ill-treatment of the 
prisoners was under the eyes and often under the direc- 
tion or sanction of officers, and officers themselves took 
part in it 

''It is to be noticed that cases occur in the depositions 
in which humane acts by individual officers and soldiers 
are mentioned, or in which officers are said to have 
expressed regret at beiag obliged to carry out orders 
for cruel action against the civilians. Similarly, we 
find entries in diaries which reveal a genuine pity for 
the population and disgust at the conduct of the 
enemy. It appears that a German non-commissioned 
officer stated definitely that he 'was acting under orders 
and executing them with great unwillingness.' A 
commissioned officer on being asked at Louvain by a 
witness, a highly educated man, about the horrible 
acts committed by the soldiers, said he 'was merely 
executing orders,' and that he himself would be shot 
if he did not execute them." 

Another division of the report is on the "killing of 
non-combatants in France." This is not as detailed 
as the case of Belgium, as the commission states that 
the French official report gives the most complete 
account as to the invaded districts in France. It 
adds : 

"The evidence before us proves that, in the parts 

127 



MASSACRE IN BELGIUM 

of France referred to, murder of unoffending civilians 
and other acts of cruelty, including aggravated cases 
of felonious attack, carried out under threat of death, 
and sometimes actually followed by murder of the vic- 
tim, were committed by some of the German troops." 

TREATMENT OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN 

A special chapter is given to the treatment of women 
and children. The latter, it is said, frequently received 
milder treatment than the men. But many instances 
are given of '^ calculated cruelty, often going the length 
of murder, towards the women and children." A wit- 
ness gives a story, very circumstantial in its details, 
of how women were publicly attacked in the market 
place of the city, five young German officers assisting. 
The report goes on: "In the evidence before us there 
are cases tending to show that aggravated crimes 
against women were sometimes severely punished. 
These instances are sufficient to show that the maltreat- 
ment of women was not part of the military scheme of 
the invaders, however much it may appear to have 
been the inevitable result of the system of terror 
deliberately adopted in certain regions. 

"It is clearly shown that many offences were com- 
mitted against infants and quite young children. On 
one occasion children were even roped together and 
used as a military screen against the enemy, on another 
three soldiers went into action carrying small children 
to protect themselves from flank fire. It is diflacult 
to imagine the motives which may have prompted such 
acts. Whether or not Belgian civilians fired on German 
soldiers, young children at any rate did not fire." 
128 



MASSACRE IN BELGIUM 

Many instances are given of the use of civilians as 
screens during the miHtary operation. Cases of the 
Red Cross being misused for offensive mihtary purposes, 
and of abuse of the white flag are also given. As to the 
latter the report says : ''There is in our opinion sufficient 
evidence that these offences have been frequent, 
deliberate and in many cases committed by whole 
units under orders. All the facts mentioned are in 
contravention of The Hague Convention, signed by the 
Great Powers, including France, Germany, Great 
Britain and the United States, in 1907." 

A division of the report is given to diaries of German 
soldiers. The entry of a sergeant of the First Guards 
Regiment, who received the Iron Cross, says, under 
date of August 10: ''A transport of 300 Belgians came 
through Duisburg in the morning. Of these, eighty, 
including the Oberburgomaster, were shot according 
to martial law." The diary of a member of the Fourth 
Company of Jagers says, under date of August 23: 
''About 220 inhabitants and the village were burned." 
Another diary, by a member of the Second Mounted 
Battery, First Kurhessian Field Artillery Regiment, 
No. 11, records an incident which happened in French 
territory near Lille on October 11: "We had no fight, 
but we caught about twenty men and shot them." 
The commission says of this last diary: "By this 
time kiUing not in a fight would seem to have passed 
into a habit." 

The report adds that the most important entry was 
contained in diary No. 19. This contained no name and 
address, but names referred to in the diary indicate 
that the entries were made by an officer of the First 

129 



MASSACRE IN BELGIUM 

Regiment of Foot Guards. The entry made at Berme- 
ton on August 24 says : ' ' We took about 1 ,000 prisoners ; 
at least 500 were shot. The village was burned because 
inhabitants had also shot. Two civilians were shot at 
once." 

*'If a line is drawn on a map from the Belgian 
frontier to Liege and continued to Charleroi, and a 
second line drawn from Liege to Malines, a sort of 
figure resembling an irregular Y will be formed. It 
is along this ' Y' that most of the systematic (as opposed 
to isolated) outrages were committed. If the period 
from August 4 to August 30 is taken it will be found to 
cover most of these organized outrages. Termonde and 
Alost extend, it is true, beyond the ^Y' lines, and they 
belong to the month of September. Murder, assault, 
arson and pillage began from the moment when the 
German army crossed the frontier. For the first 
fortnight of the war the towns and villages near Liege 
were the chief sufferers. From August 19 to the end 
of the month outrages spread in the direction of 
Charleroi and Malines and reached their period of 
greatest intensity. 

*' There is a certain significance in the fact that the 
outrages around Liege coincide with the unexpected 
resistance of the Belgian army in that district, and 
that the slaughter which reigned from August 19 to 
the end of the month is contemporaneous with the 
period when the German army's need for a quick 
passage through Belgium at all costs was deemed 
imperative. 

"In all wars occur many shocking and outrageous acts 
of men of criminal instincts whose worst passions are 
x30 



MASSACRE IN BELGIUM 

unloosed by the immunity which the conditions of 
warfare afford. Drunkenness, moreover, ma}^ turn 
even a soldier who has no criminal habits into a brute, 
and there is evidence that intoxication was extremely 
prevalent among the German army, both in Belgium 
and in France. Unfortunately little seems to have 
been done to repress this source of danger. 

CALLS KILLING DELIBERATE 

"In the present war, however — and this is the gravest 
charge against the German army — the evidence shows 
that the killing of non-combatants was carried out to 
an extent for which no previous war between nations 
claiming to be civihzed (for such cases as the atrocities 
perpetrated by the Turks on the Bulgarian Christians in 
1876, and on the Armenian Christians in 1895 and 1896, 
do not belong to that category) furnishes any precedent. 
That this kiUing was done as part of a deliberate plan 
is clear from the facts hereinbefore set forth regarding 
Louvain, Aerschot, Dinant and other towns. The 
lolling was done under orders in each place. It began 
at a certain fixed date. Some of the officers who car- 
ried out the work did it reluctantly, and said they were 
obeying directions from their chiefs. The same remarks 
apply to the destruction of property. House burning 
was part of the program; and villages, even large parts 
of a city, were given to the flames as part of the terroriz- 
ing policy. 

'^Citizens of neutral states who visited Belgium in 
December and January report that the German 
authorities do not deny that non-combatants were 
systematically Idlled in large numbers during the 

131 



MASSACRE IN BELGIUM 

first weeks of the invasion, and this, so far as we know, 
has never been officially denied. 

"The German government has, however, sought 
to justify these severities on the grounds of military 
necessity and has excused them as retaliation for 
cases in which civilians fired on German troops. There 
may have been cases in which such firing occurred, but 
no proof has ever been given, or, to our knowledge, 
attempted to be given, of such cases, nor of the stories 
of shocking outrages perpetrated by Belgian men and 
women on German soldiers. . . . 

''We gladly record the instances where the evidence 
shows that humanity has not wholly disappeared from 
some members of the German army and that they 
realized that the responsible heads of that organization 
were employing them not in war but in butchery: 'I am 
merely executing orders, and I should be shot if I did 
not execute them,' said an officer to a witness at Lou- 
vain. At Brussels another officer said, 'I have not done 
one hundredth part of what we have been ordered to 
do by the high German military authorities.' 

"That these acts should have been perpetrated oh 
the peaceful population of an unoffending country 
which was not at war with its invaders, but merely 
defending its own neutrality, guaranteed by the 
invading power, may excite amazement and even 
incredulity. It was with amazement and almost with 
incredulity that the commission first read the deposi- 
tions relating to such acts. But when the evidence 
regarding Liege was followed by that regarding Aer- 
schot, Louvain, Andenne, Dinant, and the other towns 
and villages, the cumulative effect of such a mass 
132 



MASSACRE IN BELGIUM 

of concurrent testimony became irresistible, and we 
were driven to the conclusion that the things de- 
scribed had really happened. The question then arose 
how they could have happened. 

''The explanation seems to be that these excesses 
were committed — in some cases ordered, in others 
allowed — on a system and in pursuance of a set purpose. 
That purpose was to strike terror into the civil popu- 
lation and dishearten the Belgian troops, so as to crush 
down resistance and extinguish the very spirit of self- 
defense. The pretext that civilians had fired upon the 
invading troops was used to justify not merely the 
shooting of individual franc-tireurs, but the murder 
of large numbers of innocent civilians, an act absolutely 
forbidden by the rules of civilized warfare. 

''spirit of war deified" 

"In the minds of Prussian officers war seems to have 
become a sort of sacred mission, one of the highest 
functions of the omnipotent state, which is itself as 
much an army as a state. Ordinary morality and the 
ordinary sentiment of pity vanish in its presence, 
superseded by a new standard which justifies to the 
soldier every means that can conduce to success, 
however shocking to a natural sense of justice and 
humanity, however revolting to his own feelings. The 
spirit of war is deified. Obedience to the state and 
its war lord leaves no room for any other duty or 
feeling. Cruelty becomes legitimate when it promises 
victory. Proclaimed by the heads of the army, this 
doctrine would seem to have permeated the officers 
and affected even the private soldiers, leading them to 

133 



MASSACRE IN BELGIUM 

justify the killing of non-combatants as an act of war, 
and so accustoming them to slaughter that even women 
and children become at last the victims. 

''It cannot be supposed to be a national doctrine, 
for it neither springs from nor reflects the mind and 
feelings of the German people as they have heretofore 
been known to other nations. It is specifically military 
doctrine, the outcome of a theory held by a ruling 
caste who have brooded and thought, written and 
talked and dreamed about war until they have fallen 
under its obsession and been hypnotized by its spirit. 

"The doctrine is plainly set forth in the German 
official monograph on the usages of war on land, issued 
under the direction of the German staff. This book 
is pervaded throughout by the view that whatever 
military needs suggest becomes thereby lawful, and 
upon this principle, as the diaries show, the German 
officers acted. 

''If this explanation be the true one, the mystery 
is solved, and that which seemed scarcely credible 
becomes more intelligible though not less pernicious. 
This is not the only case that history records in which 
a false theory, disguising itself as loyalty to a state or 
to a church, has perverted the conception of duty and 
become a source of danger to the world." 

THE commission's CONCLUSIONS 

The conclusions of the commission, as to the various 
detailed recitals, are as follows: 

"We may now sum up and endeavor to explain the 
character and significance of the wrongful acts done 
by the German army in Belgium. 
134 



MASSACRE IN BELGIUM 



''It is proved, first, that there were in many parts 
of Belgium dehberate and systematically organized 
massacres of the civil population accompanied by lasnij 
isolated murders and other outrages. 

''Second — That in the conduct of the war generally 
innocent civilians, both men and women, were mur- 
dered in large numbers, women attacked and children 
murdered. 

"Third — That looting, house burning and the wanton 
destruction of 




property were or- 
dered and coun- 
tenanced by the 
officers of the 
German army, 
that elaborate 
provision had 
been made for 
systematic incen- 
diarism at the 
very outbreak of 
the war, and that 
the burning and 
destruction were frequently where no military necessity 
could be alleged, being, indeed, part of a system of 
general terrorization. 

"Fourth — That the rules and usages of war were 
frequently broken, particularly by the using of civilians, 
including women and children, as a shield for advancing 
forces exposed to fire, to a less degree by killing the 
wounded and prisoners, and in the frequent abuse of 
the Red Cross and the white flag. 

135 



"Their Fiest Success." 
"At Morfontaine, near Longwy, the Germans 
shot two fifteen-year-old children who had 
warned the French gendarmes of the enemy's 
arrival." — The Newspapers. 



MASSACRE IN BELGIUM 

"Sensible as they are of the gravity of these con- 
clusions, the commission conceive that they would be 
doing less than their duty if they failed to record them 
as fully established by the evidence. Murder, lust and 
pillage prevailed over many parte, of Belgium on a 
scale unparalleled in any war between civilized nations 
during the last three centuries. 

'^Our functidn is ended when we have stated what 
the evidence establishes, but we may be permitted to 
express our belief that these disclosures will not have 
been made in vain if they touch and rouse the conscience 
of mankind, and we venture to hope that as soon as the 
present war is over, the nations of the world in council 
will consider what means can be provided and sanctions 
devised to prevent the recurrence of such horrors as 
our generation is now witnessing." 



136 




oiln 
O 

C IB 



:;S s 



ai "S 



CHAPTER XIII 

A BELGIAN BOY'S STORY OF THE RUIN OF 

AERSCHOT 

PITIABLE PLIGHT OF BOY OF SIXTEEN STRANDED 

IN ANTWERP HIS ARREST ^A TOWN IN RUINS 

BURYING THE DEAD THE LEVELED GUNS MARCH- 
ING AMONG GERMAN CAMPS NO MONEY AND NO 

WORK. 

TO THE thousands of unhappy Belgian refugees 
driven from their homes by the advancing Germans 
and transported to England the pity of the whole world 
has gone out; yet even more deplorable than the 
condition of these was the fate of those who were left 
behind to suffer at the hands of a relentless enemy. 
The story of a delicate boy of sixteen, as told in the 
following letter which he himself wrote from Antwerp 
to his former employer, an American living at the 
time in England, is typical. 

When this boy, fleeing from Aerschot, arrived in 
Antwerp, without friends, money or papers, there v/as 
no agency to help him. If he had been a smaller 
child somebody doubtless would have taken pity on 
him and carried him with them as they fled; if he 
had been able to preserve his tegitimatization papers 
the Belgian authorities would have given him some 
support; and, of course, if he had been older, he would 
have been immediately enlisted in the service of his 

137 



BELGIAN BOY'S STORY OF RUIN 



country. As it was he could only drift before the foe, 

and suffer. 

^^ Antwerp, Sept. 23, 1914. 

''Dear Sir: As you correctly said in my testimonial 
when you were closing the office, the war has isolated 
Belgium. Really I can well say that I have been 
painfully struck by this scourge, and I permit myself, 
dear sir, to give you a little description of my Calvary. 

"Your offices were closed in the beginning of August. 
As I did not know what to do and as the fatherland 
had not enough men to defend its territory I tried to 
get myself accepted as a volunteer. 

''On Aug. 10 I went to Aerschot, my native town, 
to get my certificate of good conduct. Then I went to 
Louvain to have same signed by the commander of 
the place. This gentleman sent me to St. Nicholas 
and thence to Hemixem, where I was rejected as too 
young. I then decided to return to Brussels, passing 
through Aerschot. Here my aunt asked me to stay 
with her, saying that she was afraid of the Germans. 

"I remained at Aerschot. This was Aug. 15. Sud- 
denly, on the 19th, at nine o'clock in the morning, after 
a terrible bombardment, the Germans made their 
entry into Aerschot. In the first street which they 
passed through they broke into the houses. They 
brought out six men whom I knew very well and 
immediately shot them. Learning of this, I fled to 
Louvain, where I arrived on Aug. 19 at one o'clock. 

HIS ARREST 

"At 1.30 p. M. the Germans entered Louvain. They 
did not do anything to the people in the beginning. 
138 



BELGIAN BOY'S STORY OF RUIN 

On the following Saturday, Aug. 22, I started to 
return to Aerschot, as I had no money. (All my 
money was still in Brussels.) The w^hole distance 
from Louvain to Aerschot I saw nothing but German 
armies, always Germans. They did not say a word 
to me until I suddenly found myself alone with three 
of the '^Todeshusaren" (Death's-head Hussars), 
the vanguard of their regiment. They arrested me 
at the point of the revolver, demanded where I was 
going and why I had run away from Aerschot. They 
said that the whole of Aerschot was now on fire, 
because the son of the burgomaster had killed a 
general. Finally they searched me from head to 
foot, and I heard them discuss the question of my 
fate. 

'^Finally the non-commissioned ofl&cer told me that 
I could continue on my way; that they would cer- 
tainly take care of me in Aerschot, as I had been 
firing at Germans, and they would shoot me when 
I arrived. I would have liked better to return to 
Louvain, but with an imperious gesture he pointed 
out my road to Aerschot, and I continued. On 
arriving within a few hundred meters of the town 
I was arrested once more. 

''I forgot to tell you that of all the houses which 
I passed between Louvain and Aerschot, there were 
only a few left intact. Upon these the Germans 
had written in chalk in the German language: 'Please 
spare. Good people. Do not burn.' Lying along 
the road I saw many dead horses putrefying. There 
were also to be seen pigs, goats, and cows which had 
nothing to eat, and which were howling like wild 

139 



BELGIAN BOY'S STORY OF RUIN 



beasts. Not a soul was to be seen in the houses or in 
the streets. Everything was empty. 

"I was then arrested when a short distance from 
Aerschot. There were with me two or three famihes 

^.^-7/ from Sichem, a 
village between 
Diest and Aer- 
schot. We re- 
mained in the 
fields alongside the 
road, while the 
Prussian regi- 
ments with their 
artillery continued 
to pass by. When 
the artillery had 
passed we were 
marched at the 
point of the bay- 
onet to the church 
in Aerschot. On arrival at the church the families of 
Sichem (there were at least twenty small children) 
were permitted to continue on their way, and the non- 
commissioned officer, delighted that I could speak 
German, permitted me to go to my aunt's house. 

A TOWN IN RUINS 

'^The aspect of the town was terrible. Not more 
than half the houses were standing. In the first 
three streets which the Germans traversed there was 
not a single house left. There was not a house in the 
town but had been pillaged. All doors had been burst 




In Belgium. 
Jean — "Do you think St. Nicholas will find 
us, now that we haven't a chimney?" 



BELGIAN BOY'S STORY OF RUIN 

open. There was nothing, nothing left. The stench 
in the streets was insupportable. 

"I then went home, or, rather, I should say, I went 
to the house where my father had always been board- 
ing. You know, perhaps, that my mother died twelve 
years ago. I did not find my father, but according to 
what the people told me he had been arrested, and, 
with five other Aerschot men, taken to Germany — I do 
not know for what purpose. 

''I got into this house without any difficulty, because 
the door was smashed in. I stayed there from Satur- 
day, Aug. 22, up to Wednesday, the 26th, a little more 
comfortable. There was nothing to eat left in the 
house. I lived on what a few women who remained 
in Aerschot could give me. I was forced to go with 
the soldiers into the cellar^ of M. X., director of a 
large factory, to hunt for wine. As recompense I got 
a loaf. It was not much, but at this moment it meant 
very much for me. 

BURYING THE DEAD 

''On Wednesday, Aug. 26, we were all once more 
locked up in the church. It was then half-past four in 
the afternoon. We could not get out, even for our 
necessities. On Thursday, about nine o'clock, each of 
us was given a piece of bread and a glass of water. 
This was to last the whole day. At ten o'clock a 
lieutenant came in, accompanied by fifteen soldiers. 
He placed all the men who were left in a square, 
selected seventy of us and ordered us out to bmy the 
corpses of Germans and Belgians around the town, 
which had been lying there since the battle of the 19th. 

141 



BELGIAN BOY'S STORY OF RUIN 

That was a week that these bodies had remained there, 
and it is no use to ask if there was a stench. After- 
ward we had to clean the streets, and then it was 
evening. 

THE LEVELED GUNS 

''They just got ready to shoot us. There were 
then ten of us. The guns had already been leveled at 
us, when suddenly a German soldier ran out shouting 
that we had not fired on them. A few minutes before 
we had heard rifle-firing and the Germans said it was 
the Aerschot people who were shooting, though all 
these had been locked up in the church and we were 
the only inhabitants then in the streets, cleaning them, 
under surveillance of Germans. It was this German 
who saved our lives. 

"Picture to yourself what we have suffered! It is 
impossible to describe. On Aug. 28 we were brought 
to Louvain, alwaj^s guarded by German soldiers. 
There were with us about twenty old men, over 
eighty years of age. These were placed in two 
carts, tied to one another in pairs. I and 
about twenty of my unfortunate compatriots 
had then to pull the carts all the way to Louvain. 
It was hard, but that could be supported all the 
same. 

''On arriving at Louvain I saw with my own eyes a 
German who shot at us. The Germans who were at 
the station shouted 'The civilians have been shooting,' 
and commenced a fusillade against us. Many of us 
fell dead, others wounded, but I had the chance to 
run away. 
142 



BELGIAN BOY'S STORY OF RUIN 

MARCHING AMONG GERMAN CAMPS 

"I now took the road to Tirlemont, marching all 
the time among German camps. Once I was arrested. 
Again they wanted to shoot me, insisting that I was 
a student of the University of Lou vain. The Germans 
pretend it was the students who caused the population 
in Louvain to shoot at them. However, my youth 
saved me, and I was set at libertj^ 

NO MONEY AND NO WORK 

"All my money, the twenty francs which you pre- 
sented me and my salary for five weeks, as well as my 
little savings, are lying in Brussels, and I cannot get 
at them. . . I cannot work, because there is no work 
to be got. I cannot cross over to England, as, to do 
this, it is necessary that there should be a whole 
family. In these horrible circumstances, I respect- 
fully take the liberty of addressing you, and I hope 
you will aid me as best you can. I swear to you that 
I shall pay you back all that you give me. I have 
here in Antwerp no place, no family. The town will 
not give me any aid, because I have no papers to 
prove my identity. I threw all my papers away for 
fear of the Germans. I count then on you with a 
firm hope to pay you back later. 

"Please accept, dear sir, my respectful greetings." 



14c 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE UNSPEAKABLE ATROCITIES OF 
"CIVILIZED" WARFARE 

DISCLOSURES MADE IN FRENCH OFFICIAL REPORTS 

AND NOTEBOOKS OF GERMAN SOLDIERS NOTHING 

SACRED HIDEOUS FACES OF THE DEAD WOMEN 

FORCED TO DIG GRAVES GETTING HARDENED 

WHOLESALE PILLAGE MUTILATIONS OF THE DEAD 

AND WOUNDED THE FRENCH REPORT. 

THE FRENCH official report on German atrocities 
contained records of such horror that the whole civilized 
world stood aghast. Here at last was war with all its 
multitudinous attendant crimes, more horrible than 
the actual warfare itself because so causeless and so 
bestial. Many stories of atrocities had been told by 
travelers and war correspondents abroad; the official 
report from France verified these earlier accounts, 
though there was still a vestige of doubt because it was 
a French report of German atrocities; and then to back 
up this record and remove the last shadow of disbelief, 
came the testimony of the Germans against themselves, 
through the ''War Diaries" of German soldiers, many 
of which naturally fell into the hands of the enemy. 
Paragraphs selected from these notebooks follow: 

"In this way we destroyed eight dwellings and their 
inhabitants. In one of the houses we bayoneted two 
men, with their wives and a young girl eighteen years 
144 



THE UNSPEAKABLE ATROCITIES 

old. The young one almost unmanned me, her look 
was so innocent ! But we could not master the excited 
troop, for at such times they are no longer men — they 
are beasts."^ 

NOTHING SACRED 

*' Unfortunately, I am forced to make note of a fact 
which should not have occurred, but there are to be 
found, even in our own army, creatures who are no 
longer men, but hogs, to whom nothing is sacred. 
One of these broke into a sacristy; it was locked, and 
there the Blessed Sacrament was kept. A Protestant, 
out of respect, had refused to sleep there. This man 
used it as a deposit for his excrements. How is it 
possible there should be such creatures? Last night 
one of the men of the landwehr, more than thirty-five 
years of age, married, tried to rape the daughter of 
the inhabitant where he had taken up his quarters — a 
mere girl — and when the father intervened he pressed 
his bayonet against his breast." 

" Langeviller, Aug. 22. — ^Village destroyed by the 
eleventh battalion of Pioneers. Three women hanged 
to trees; the first dead I have seen." 

HIDEOUS FACES OF THE DEAD 

"The inhabitants fled through the village. It was 
horrible. The walls of houses are bespattered with 
blood and the faces of the dead are hideous to look 
upon. They were buried at once, some sixty of them. 
Among them many old women, old men, and one woman 
pregnant — the whole a dreadful sight. Three children 
huddled together — all dead. Altar and arches of the 
10 145 



THE UNSPEAKABLE ATROCITIES 

church shattered. Telephone communication with 
the enemy was found there. This morning, Sept. 2, 
all the survivors were driven out; I saw four httle 
boys carrying on two poles a cradle with a child some 
five or six months old. The whole makes a fearful 
sight. Blow upon blow! Thunderbolt on thunderbolt ! 
Everything given over to plunder. I saw a mother 
with her two little ones — one of them had a great wound 
in the head and an eye put out." 

''At the entrance to the village lay the bodies of some 
fifty citizens, shot for having fired upon our troops from 
ambush. In the course of the night many others were 
shot down in like manner, so that we counted more 
than two hundred. Women and children, holding 
their lamps, were compelled to assist at this horrible 
spectacle. We then sat down midst the corpses to eat 
our rice, as we had eaten nothing since morning." 

WOMEN FORCED TO DIG GRAVES 

''Aug. 25 (in Belgium).— We shot 300 of the inhabit- 
ants of the town. Those that survived the salvo were 
requisitioned as grave-diggers. You should have seen 
the women at that time! But it was impossible to do 
otherwise. In our march upon Wilot things went 
better; the inhabitants who wished to leave were 
allowed to do so. But whoever fired was shot. Upon 
our leaving Owele the rifles rang out, and with that, 
flames, women and all the rest." 

GETTING HARDENED 

"We arrested three civilians, and a bright idea struck 
me. We furnished them with chairs and made them 
146 



THE UNSPEAKABLE ATROCITIES 



seat themselves in the middle of the street. There were 
supplications on one part, and some blows with the 
stocks of our guns on the other. One, Httle by little, 
gets terribly hardened. Finally, there they were sitting 
in the street. How many anguished prayers they may 
have muttered, I cannot say, but during the whole time 
their hands were joined in nervous contraction. I am 
sorry for them, but the stratagem was of immediate 
effect. The enfi- 
lading directed 
from the houses 
diminished at 
once; we were 
able then to take 
possession of the 
house opposite, 
and thus became 
masters of the 
principal street. 
From that mo- 
ment every one 
that showed his 
face in the street was shot. And the artillery meanwhile 
kept up vigorous work, so that at about seven o'clock in 
the evening, when the brigade advanced to rescue us, I 
could report 'Saint-Die has been emptied of all enemies.' 

''As I learned later, the regiment of reserves, 

which came into Saint-Die further north, had expe- 
riences entirely similar to our own. The four civilians 
Vi^hom they had placed on chairs in the middle of the 
street were killed by French bullets. I saw them myself 
stretched out in the street near the hospital." 

147 




The Road to Yesterday, 



THE UNSPEAKABLE ATROCITIES 

WHOLESALE PILLAGE 

"Aug. 8, 1914. Gouvy (Belgium).— There, the 
Belgians having fired on some German soldiers, we 
started at once pillaging the merchandise warehouse. 
Several cases — eggs, shirts, and everything that could 
be eaten was carried off. The safe was forced and the 
gold distributed among the men. As to the securities, 
they were torn up." 

"The enemy occupied the village of Bievre and the 
edge of the wood behind it. The third company 
advanced in first Hne. We carried the village, and then 
pillaged and burned almost all the houses." 

"The first village we burned was Parux (Meurthe-et- 
Moselle). After this the dance began, throughout 
the villages, one after the other; over the fields and 
pastures we went on our bicycles up to the ditches at 
the edge of the road, and there sat down to eat our 
cherries." 

"Our first fight was at Haybes (Belgium) on the 
24th of August. The second battahon entered the 
village, ransacked the houses, pillaged them, and 
burned those from which shots had been fired." 

" They do not behave as soldiers, but rather as 
highwaymen, bandits and brigands, and are a dishonor 
to our regiment and to our army." 

"No discipline, . . . the Pioneers are well nigh 
worthless; as to the artillery, it is a band of robbers." 

"Aug. 12, 1914, in Belgium. — One can get an idea 
of the fury of our soldiers in seeing the destroyed 
villages. Not one house left untouched. Everything 
eatable is requisitioned by the unofiicered soldiers. 
Several heaps of men and women put to execution. 
148 



THE UNSPEAKABLE ATROCITIES 

Young pigs are running about looking for their 
mothers." 

MUTILATIONS OP THE DEAD 

"On the 22d, in the evening, I learned that in the 
woods, about one hundred and fifty meters north of 
the square formed by the intersection of the great 
Calonne trench with the road from Vaux-les-Palameis 
to Saint-Remy, there were corpses of French soldiers 
shot by the Germans. I went to the spot and found 
the bodies of about thirty soldiers within a small space, 
most of them prone, but several still kneeling, and 
all having a precisely similar wound — a bullet through 
the ear. One only, seriously wounded in his lower 
parts, could still speak, and told me that the Germans 
before leaving had ordered them to lie down and that 
they had them shot through the head; that he, already 
wounded, had secured indulgence by stating that he 
was the father of three small children. The skulls 
of these unfortunates were scattered; the guns, broken 
at the stock, were scattered here and there; and the 
blood had besprinkled the bushes to such an extent 
that in coming out of the woods my cape was spattered 
with it; it was a veritable shambles." 

"Dogs chained, without food or drink. And the 
houses about them on fire. But the just anger of our 
soldiers is accompanied also by pure vandalism. In the 
villages, already emptied of their inhabitants, the 
houses are set on fire. I feel sorry for this population. 
If they have made use of disloyal weapons, after all, 
they are only defending their own country. The 
atrocities which these non-combatants are still commit- 

149 



THE UNSPEAKABLE ATROCITIES 

ting are revenged after a savage fashion. Mutilations 
of the wounded are the order of the day." 

This order was addressed by General Stenger, in 
command of the fifty-eighth German brigade, on the 
26th of August, to the troops under his orders: 

"From this day forward no further prisoners will be 
taken. All prisoners will be massacred. The wounded, 
whether in arms or not in arms, shall be massacred. 
Even the prisoners already gathered in convoys will be 
massacred. No living enemy must remain behind us." 

THE FRENCH REPORT 

Having been instructed to investigate atrocities 
said to have been committed by the Germans in 
portions of French territory which had been occupied 
by them, a commission composed of four representatives 
of the French Government repaired to these districts 
in order to make a thorough investigation. The com- 
mission was composed of M. Georges Payelle, First 
President of the Cour des Comptes; Armand Mollard, 
Minister Plenipotentiary; Georges Maringer, Coun- 
selor of State, and Edmond Paillot, Counselor of the 
Cour de Cassation. 

They started on their mission late in September, 
1914, and visited the Departments of Seine-et-Marne, 
Marne, Meuse, Meurthe-et-Moselle, Oise, and Aisne. 
According to the report, they made note only of those 
accusations against the invaders which were backed 
up by reliable testimony and discarded everything that 
might have been occasioned by the exigencies of war. 

The statement, which extends over many pages and 
contains over 25,000 words, is a record of the most 
150 



THE UNSPEAKABLE ATROCITIES 

fiendisli crimes imaginable. ^'On every side our eyes 
rested on ruin. Whole villages have been destroyed 
by bombardment or fire; towns formerly full of life 
are now nothing but deserts full of ruins; and, in visiting 
the scenes of desolation where the invader's torch has 
done its work, one feels continually as though one 
were walking among the remains of one of those cities 
of antiquity which have been annihilated by the great 
cataclysms of nature. 

"In truth it can be stated that never has a war 
carried on between civilized nations assumed the 
savage and ferocious character of the one which at this 
moment is being waged on our soil by an implacable 
adversary. Pillage, rape, arson, and murder are the 
common practice of our enemies; and the facts which 
have been revealed to us day by day at once constitute 
definite crimes against common rights, punished by 
the codes of every country with the most severe and the 
most dishonoring penalties, and which prove an aston- 
ishing degeneration in German habits of thought 
since 1870. 

'^Crimes against women and young girls have been 
of appalling frequency. We have proved a great 
number of them, but they only represent an infinitesimal 
proportion of those which we could have taken up. 
Owing to a sense of decency, which is deserving of every 
respect, the victims of these hateful acts usually refuse 
to disclose them. Doubtless fewer would have been 
committed if the leaders of an army whose discipline 
is most rigorous had taken any trouble to prevent 
them; yet, strictly speaking, they can only be considered 
as the individual and spontaneous acts of uncaged 

151 



THE UNSPEAKABLE ATROCITIES 

beasts. But with regard to arson, theft, and murder 
the case is very different; the officers, even those of the 
highest station, will bear before humanity the over- 
whelming responsibility for these crimes. 

''In the greater part of the places where we carried 
on our inquiry we came to the conclusion that the 
German Army constantly professes the most complete 
contempt for human life, that its soldiers, and even its 
officers, do not hesitate to finish off the wounded, that 
they kill without pity the inoffensive inhabitants of the 
territories which they have invaded, and they do not 
spare in their murderous rage women, old men, or 
children. The wholesale shootings at Luneville, Ger- 
beviller, Nomeny, and Senlis are terrible examples of 
this; and in the course of this report you will read the 
story of scenes of carnage in which officers themselves 
have not been ashamed to take part." 

HORRIBLE CASES OF RAPE 

Of the criminal attempts on women cited in the 
report two of the most horrible occurred in the Depart- 
ment of Seine-et-Marne. 

''Frightful scenes occurred at the Chateau de in 

the neighborhood of La Ferte-Gaucher. There lived 
there an old gentleman, M. X., with his servant. Mile. 
Y;, 54 years old. On Sept. 5 several Germans, among 
whom was a non-commissioned officer, were in occupa- 
tion of this property. After they had been supplied 
with food, the non-commissioned officer proposed to 
a refugee, a Mme. Z., that she should sleep with him; 
she refused. M. X., to save her from the designs of 
which she was the object, sent her to his farm, which 
152 




The Bombardment of the East Coast of England. 
This scene, painted in Hartlepool, shows the effect of a bursting German 
shell in the unfortified British town. Several women and many other 
civilians were killed by the German raiders. 



Prussian Soldier Kidnapping a Red Ckoss Nurse. 
In spite of her prayer he seized her roughly, tied her hands together 
and throwing her across his saddle rode away. Fortunately, a Cossack 
appeared, pierced the scoundrel with his lance and rescued the woman. 
(Graphic copr.) 



THE UNSPEAKABLE ATROCITIES 



X. 



was in the neighborhood. The German ran there to 
fetch her, dragged her back to the chateau and led her 
to the attic; then, having completely undressed her, 
he tried to violate her. At this moment M. X., wishing 
to protect her, fired revolver shots on the staircase and 
was immediately shot. 

^'The non-commissioned officer then made Mme. 
come out of the 
attic, obliged her 
to step over the 
corpse of the old 
man, and led her 
to a closet, where 
he again made two 
unsuccessful at- 
tempts upon her. 
Leaving her at 
last, he threw him- 
self upon Mile. Y., 
having first handed 
Mme. Z. over to 
two soldiers, who, 
after having vio- 
lated her, one once 
and the other 

twice, in the dead man's room, made her pass the night 
in a barn near them, where one of them twice again 
had sexual connection with her. 

"As for Mile. Y., she was obliged by threats of being 
shot, to strip herseK completely naked and lie on a 
mattress with the non-commissioned officer, who kept 
her there until morning. 

153 




"At Least They Only Drown Your 
Women." 



THE UNSPEAKABLE ATROCITIES 

"It is generally believed at Coulommieis that 
criminal attempts have heen made on many women 
of that town, but only one crime of this nature has 
been proved for certain. A charwoman, Mme. X., 
was the victim. A soldier came to her house on the 6th 
of September, toward 9.30 in the evening, and sent 
away her husband to go and search for one of his 
comrades in the street. Then, in spite of the fact that 
two small children were present, he tried to rape the 
young woman. X., when he heard his wife's cries, 
rushed back, but was driven off vv^ith blows of the 
butt of the man's rifle into a neighboring room, of which 
the door was left open, and his wife was forced to suffer 
the consummation of the outrage. The rape rook place 
almost under the eyes of the husband, who, being 
terrorized, did not dare to intervene, and used his 
efforts only to calm the terror of his children. 

ARSON AND MURDER RAMPANT 

''Personal liberty, like human life, is the object of 
complete scorn on the part of the German military 
authorities. Almost everywhere citizens of every age 
have been dragged from their homes and led into 
captivity, many have died or been killed on the way. 

''Arson, still more than murder, forms the usual 
procedure of our adversaries. It is employed by them 
either as a means of systematic devastation or as a 
means of terrorism. The German Army, in order to 
provide for it, possesses a complete outfit, which 
comprises torches, grenades, rockets, petrol pumps, 
fuse sticks, and httle bags of pastilles made of com- 
pressed powder which are very inflammable. The lust 
154 



THE UNSPEAKABLE ATROCITIES 

for arson is manifested chiefly against churches and 
against monuments which have some special interest, 
either artistic or historical. 

"Thousands of houses in the ground covered by the 
investigators had been completely destroyed by fire. 
In the Department of Marne a great many villages, as 
well as important country towns, were burned without 
any reason whatever. Without doubt these crimes 
were committed by order, as German detachments 
arrived in the neighborhood v/ith their torches, their 
grenades, and their usual outfit for arson. 

''At Lepine, a laborer named Caque, in whose house 
two German cyclists were billeted, asked the latter if 
the grenades which he saw in their possession were 
destined for his house. They answered: 'No. Lepine 
is finished with.' At that moment nine houses in the 
village were burned out. 

"At Marfaux nineteen private houses were burned. 

"Of the commune of Glannes practically nothing 
remains. At Sommc-Tourbe the entire village has 
been destroyed, with the exception of the mayoralty 
house, the church, and two private buildings. 

"At Auve nearly the whole town has been destroyed. 
At Etrepy sixty-three families out of seventy are 
homeless. At Huiron all the houses, with the exception 
of five, have been burned. At Sermaize-les-Bains only 
about forty houses out of nine hundred remain. At 
Bignicourt-sur-Saultz thirty houses out of thirty-three 
are in ruins. 

"At Suippes, the big market town which has been 
practically burned out, German soldiers carrying straw 
and cans of petrol have been seen in the streets. While 

155 



THE UNSPEAKABLE ATROCITIES 

the mayor's house was burning, six sentinels with 
fixed bayonets were under orders to forbid any one to 
approach and to prevent any help being given. 

"All this destruction by arson, which only represents 
a small proportion of the acts of the same kind in the 
Department of Seine-et-Marne, was accomplished 
without the least tendency to rebellion or the smallest 
act of resistance being recorded against the inhabitants 
of the localities which are today more or less completely 
destroyed. In some villages the Germans, before 
setting fire to them, made one of their soldiers fire a 
shot from his rifle so as to be able to pretend afterward 
that the civilian population had attacked them, an 
allegation which is all the more absurd since at the 
time when the enemy arrived the only inhabitants left 
were old men, sick persons, or people absolutely without 
any means of aggression. 

UNCONTROLLED SAVAGERY 

" On the 6th of September at Champguyon, Mme. 
Lou vet was present at the martyrdom of her husband. 
She saw him in the hands of ten or fifteen soldiers, 
who were beating him to death before his own house, 
and ran up and kissed him through the bars of the 
gate. She was brutally pushed back and fell, while 
the murderers dragged along the unhappy man covered 
with blood, bagging them to spare his life and protesting 
that he had done nothing to be treated thus. He was 
finished off at the end of the village. When his wife 
found his body it was horribly disfigured. His head 
was beaten in, one of his eyes hung from the socket, and 
one of his wrists was broken. 
156 



THE UNSPEAKABLE ATROCITIES 

"At Montmirail a scene of real savagery was enacted. 
On the 5th of September a non-commissioned officer 
flung himself almost naked on the widow Naude, on 
whom he was billeted, and carried her into his room. 
This woman's father, Frangois Fontaine, rushed up on 
hearing his daughter's cry. At once fifteen or twenty 
Germans broke through the door of the house, pushed 
the old man into the street, and shot him without 
mercy. Little Juliette Naude opened the window at 
this moment and was struck in the stomach by a 
bullet, which went through her body. The poor child 
died after twenty-four hours of most dreadful suffering. 

CONSTANT EVIDENCE OF THEFT 

"We have constantly found definite evidence of 
theft," states the report further, "and we do not hesi- 
tate to state that where a body of the enemy has passed 
it has given itself up to a systematically organized 
pillage, in the presence of its leaders, who have even 
themselves often taken part in it. Cellars have been 
emptied to the last bottle, safes have been gutted, 
considerable sums of money have been stolen or 
extorted; a great quantity of plate and jewelry, as well 
as pictures, furniture, 'objets d'art,' hnen, bicycles, 
women's dresses, sewing machines, even down to 
children's toys, after having been taken away, have 
been loaded on vehicles to be taken toward the fron- 
tier." 

Space forbids further quotation from the harrowing 
document, in which one frightful tale succeeds another, 
until with a wave of sickening horror the reader cries 
out, "Can such things really be?" 

157 



THE UNSPEAKABLE ATROCITIES 

GERMANY DENIES ATROCITIES 

''A chain of baseless fabrications" is the phrase used 
by Germany to characterize the charges brought against 
the German armies by the French government, claim- 
ing that '^ German army officers have, by every means 
and with fuU success, effected the maintenance of 
discipline and the strict observance of all the rules of 
war in each and all the spheres of operation." 

The demolished villages and pitiful victims must 
tell their own tale of terror. Doubtless many of the 
crimes committed have been without the sanction of 
the German government or even without the authority 
of a superior officer, but, even allowing for the partisan- 
ship that is natural on the part of afflicted inhabitants, 
the testimony of the French commission together 
with that of former Ambassador Bryce must deeply 
affect the attitude of all thinking people toward 
warfare. 



158 



CHAPTER XV 

DESTROYING THE PRICELESS MONUMENTS 
OF CIVILIZATION 

THE INEXPIABLE GERMAN CRIME, LOUVAIN — ^ART 

TREASURES OF HISTORIC CITY REDUCED TO A 

HEAP OF ASHES— PITILESS DESTRUCTION AS TOLD 
BY TOWN TREASURER A MODERN POMPEII INDIG- 
NANT PROTEST AGAINST MODERN 'HUNS. 

ALL THROUGH Belgium and all through the country 
of the Franco-German border line are towns and cities 
filled with treasures of art and history — some of the 
richest, indeed, that centuries of civilization have 
amassed. Under the guns of both sides of the mighty 
conflict these paintings and shrines and storied buildings 
have been exposed to destruction, and many of them 
have been wantonly sacrificed, shattered beyond hope 
of restoration. 

Under the latest Hague proposals, Article XXVIII, 
historic monuments are supposed to be respected even 
by warring nations, yet both Germany and France 
have accused each other of violating this convention. 
The whole of civilized humanity rises in protest 
against such sacrilege. 

Among all the black crimes of the German invasion 
of Belgium none is blacker than the sack and burning of 
Louvain, the fairest city of Belgium and the intellectual 
metropolis of the Low Countries. According to a 

159 



PRICELESS MONUMENTS DESTROYED 

bitter statement of Frank Jewett Mather, the well- 
known American art critic, ^'Louvain contained more 
beautiful works of art than the Prussian nation has 
produced in its entire history." 

ART TREASURES OF HISTORIC CITY 

There was hardly a building within the ramparts 
but breathed the air of some romance of the Middle 
Ages or marked a stepping-stone in its stirring history. 
Once before war robbed it of its commercial prestige, 
only to permit it to rise, phoenix-like, as the center of 
learning during the sixteenth century. At the opening 
of the present war it still boasted of the largest univer- 
sity in Belgium, in which thousands of antique volumes 
and prints were stored. Its museums and its churches 
housed scores of paintings of the old Flemish 
masters. 

Louvain has passed through successive periods of 
culture and barbarity ever since Julius Caesar estab- 
lished a permanent camp there during his campaigns 
against the Belgians and the Germans. In the eleventh 
century it became the residence of the long line of 
Dukes of Brabant, and was the capital until Brussels 
wrested this distinction from it during an uprising of 
weavers against their feudal masters. In the four- 
teenth century it had gained a population of between 
100,000 and 150,000, and there were no fewer than 
2,400 woolen manufactories. The weavers were a 
turbulent lot, however, and when they rose against the 
Duke Wencelaus he conquered them and forced 
thousands of them to flee to Holland and England. 
It was then that Brussels became the capital and 
160 



PRICELESS MONUMENTS DESTROYED 



Louvain lost its prestige as a center of the cloth-making 
industry. 

Scholars began to pour into the town, however, to 
glean what learn- 
ing they could 
from the old 
parchments and 
books which its 
castles contained. 
In 1423 Duke John 
IV of Brabant 
founded Louvain 
University. Stu- 
dents flocked there 
from all over the 
world. In the 
sixteenth century 
it had 4,000 stu- 
dents and forty- 
three colleges. 

The library oc- 
cupied a large 
room with fine 
wood panels, 
carved in intricate 
designs. It held 
150,000 volumes 
and thousands of 
manuscripts, val- 
uable beyond 
price. It contained a colossal group representing a 




The Voice op the Cologne Church Speaks: 

"Louvain, thou wast built on my foundations, 
spirit of my spirit, heart of my heart." 



scene from the Flood, sculptured by Geerts in 1839. 



11 



161 



PRICELESS MONUMENTS DESTROYED 

One block to the north of the university is the Grande 
Place, on which faced the Hotel de Ville, one of the 
finest examples of the late Gothic style of architecture 
in Europe. It surpassed the town halls of Bruges, 
Brussels, and Ghent in elegance of detail and harmony 
of design. It was erected in 1448 by Mathicu de 
Layens, and it was from the upper windows of this 
building that thirteen magistrates of noble birth were 
hurled to their death on the spears of the populace in 
the streets below during the weavers' uprising. 

Across the Grande Place stood the church of St. 
Pierre, a magnificent type of the Gothic style built on 
a cruciform plan and flanked by chapels holding reli- 
quaries of the saints, life-sized wooden figures, and 
priceless carvings and paintings* There might have 
been seen the works of Van Papenhoven, Roger van 
der Weyden, Dierick Bouts, and De Layens. 

REDUCED TO A HEAP OF ASHES 

The notification of the sacking of Louvain was con- 
tained in the notice issued by the British Press Bureau 
on Friday, August 28, 1914, which read as follows: "On 
Tuesday evening a German corps, after receiving a 
check, withdrew in disorder into the town of Louvain. 
A German guard at the entrance to the town mistook 
the nature of this incursion and fired on their routed 
fellow-country'men, mistaking them for Belgians. In 
spite of all denials from the authorities the Germans, 
in order to cover their mistake, pretended that it was 
the inhabitants who had fired on them, whereas the 
inhabitants, including the police, had been disarmed 
more than a week before. Without inquiry and with- 
162 



PRICELESS MONUMENTS DESTROYED 

out listening to any protests the German commander- 
in-chief announced that the town would be immediately 
destroyed. The inhabitants were ordered to leave 
their dwellings; a party of the men were made prisoners 
and the women and children put into trains, the desti- 
nation of which is unknown. Soldiers furnished with 
bombs set fke to all parts of the town. The splendid 
church of St. Pierre, the University buildings, the 
library, and the scientific establishment were delivered 
to the flames. Several notable citizens were shot. A 
town of 45,000 inhabitants, the intellectual metropolis 
of the Low Countries since the fifteenth century, is 
now no more than a heap of ashes." 

PITILESS DESTRUCTION AS TOLD BY TOWN TREASURER 

The town treasurer of Louvain, who managed to 
escape from the sacked citj^, gave in the London Times 
the following account of the destruction: 

"At last, on Tuesday night, there took place 
the unspeakable crime, the shame of which can be 
understood only by those who followed and watched 
the different phases of the German occupation of 
Louvain. 

"It is a significant fact that the German wounded 
and sick, including their Red Cross nurses, were all 
removed from the hospitals. The Germans meanwhile 
proceeded methodically to make a last and supreme 
requisition, although they knew the town could not 
satisfy it. Toward six o'clock the bugle sounded, and 
officers lodging in private houses left at once with arms 
and luggage. At the same time thousands of additional 
soldiers, with numerous field pieces and cannon, 

163 



PRICELESS MONUMENTS DESTROYED 

marched into the town to their allotted positions. The 
gas factory, which had been idle, had been worked 
through the previous night and day by Germans, so 
that during this premeditated outrage the people could 
not take advantage of darkness to escape from the 
town. A further fact that proves their premeditation 
is that the attack took place at eight o'clock, the exact 
time at which the population entered their homes in 
conformity with the German orders— consequently 
escape became well-nigh impossible. At 8.20 the full 
fusillade with the roar of the cannons came from all 
sides of the town at once. 

'^The cavalry charged through the streets sabring 
fugitives, while the infantry, posted on the foot-paths, 
had their fingers on the triggers of their guns waiting 
for the unfortunate people to rush from the houses or 
appear at the windows, the soldiers praising and 
complimenting each other on their marksmanship as 
they fired at the unhappy fugitives. Those whose 
houses were not yet destroyed were ordered to quit and 
follow the soldiers to the railway station. There the 
men were separated from mothers, wives, and children, 
and thrown, some bound, into trains leaving in the 
direction of Germany. They saw their carefully- 
collected art and other treasures being shared out by 
the soldiers, the officers looking on. Those who 
attempted to appeal to their tormentors' better feelings 
were immediately shot. A few were let loose, but 
most of them were sent to Germany. 

"On Wednesday at daybreak the remaining women 
and children were driven out of the town — a lamentable 
spectacle — with uplifted arms and under the menace of 
164 



PRICELESS MONUMENTS DESTROYED 

bayonets and revolvers. The day was practically 
calm. The destruction of the most beautiful part of 
the town seemed momentarily to have soothed the 
barbarian rage of the invaders. On Thursday the 
remnant of the Civil Guard was called up on the pretext 
of extinguishing the conflagration; those who demurred 
were chained and sent with some wounded Germans to 
the Fatherland, whilst the population had to quit." 

A MODERN POMPEII 

Fair Louvain is now a place of desolation and ashes. 
Its treasures have been madly sacrificed to the god of 
war. A graphic description of the ruin has been 
written by Professor E. Gilson, of the University of 
Louvain, in the form of a letter to the Belgian Minister 
of Justice. It says in part: 

"At the ^Seven Corners' Louvain reveals itself to my 
eyes like a luminous panorama in the glade of a forest. 
The center of the city is a smoking heap of ruins. 
Houses are caved in, nothing remains but smoking 
ruins, and a mass of brick. It is a veritable Pompeii. 
But how much more tragic and vivid is the sight of this 
new Pompeii! An oppressive silence everywhere. 
Everybody has fled; at the windows of cellars I see 
frightened faces, and at the street corners Prussian 
sentinels, sordid, immovable and silent. 

"In the center stand the walls of St. Pierre, now a 
grinning silhouette, roof and belfry gone, the walls 
blackened and caved in. In front stands the Hotel de 
Ville, dominating everything and almost intact. 
Further on, the remains of Les Hales, entirely des- 
troyed, except for the arcade of big pillars of the Salle 

165 



PRICELESS MONUMENTS DESTROYED 

des Pas Perdus. The library and its treasures are 
entirely gone. 

'^In the Petite Rue Louis Nelsens everything is 
destroyed. At the foot of the statue, in a flower bed all 
tramped underfoot, there is an irregular hillock covered 
with a few dead leaves. An old woman, recognizing 
me, comes out of her cellar and tells me: ^Monsieur, 
this is the grave of Monsieur David and his son, the 
best people that ever lived.' She cries. They were 
killed by shrapnel fired upon them as they were leaving 
their house. The Capuchin brothers made temporary 
graves for the dead. 

''Graves were found nearly everywhere. In front 
of the statue, near a house, I find traces of fire. 'In 
this place,' the old woman tells me, 'the Prussians 
burned a body after soaking it in petroleum. Some 
men buried the charred remains.' I pick up a key 
which must have belonged to the dead man — a memento 
of this monstrous incident. 

"In the center of the city the sight is extraordinarily 
picturesque — gloomy, abominable, and more so in the 
evening when the fuU moon is shining over the mass of 
ruins, it is really fantastic, diabolical. 

"The center of old Louvain, the old city of the Dukes 
of Brabant, exists no longer; a new city will have to be 
built in the center of the quarters spared by the torch. 

BURNING OF CITY SYSTEMATIC ' 

"A villager told me that the soldiers had two waj^s 
of setting fire to the houses: One was to break the 
windows of the first floor, to throw petroleum on the 
floor, and throw in torches of burning straw, while 
166 



PRICELESS MONUMENTS DESTROYED 



others were engaged in shooting at the upper-story 
windows to prevent the inhabitants from throwing 
missiles on those setting fire to their homes." 

INDIGNANT PROTEST AGAINST MODERN HUNS 

Indignant protest against the outrageous sacrifice 
of Louvain arose from every quarter of the civiHzed 
world. The London Tablet, commenting on the desola- 
tion of Belgium and the sacrifice of her temples, said : 

''The irreparable crime of Louvain and the ruthless 
damage done to the Cathedral of Malines while Cardinal 
Mercier was absent in Rome have left Belgium's cup 
of bitterness still unfilled. We do not understand 
the reason of these remorseless attacks upon venerable 
places of worship, and particularly upon Roman 
Catholic churches. We do not fully discern why even 
the modern Huns should be so eager to violate these 
peaceful sanctuaries, destroying one, bombarding 
another with zest, stabling their horses in a third, as 
they have undoubtedly done. One would almost fancy 
that the late Professor Cramb was right after all, 
that Germany regards the Christian creed as outworn, 
and that she dreams, when she has imposed her will 
upon the world (if she can), of founding a new religion, 
with the Kaiser as its inspired expositor. We wonder 
what the pious people of Bavaria and Austria-Hungary 
think of this persistent desecration of Catholic shrines. 
The meaning of the sack of Dinant is, however, suffi- 
ciently clear. Thousands of travelers know that 
pleasant little town, which clustered beneath the old 
citadel on the banks of the Meuse. They will learn 
with horror and distress that it has shared the fate of 

167 



PRICELESS MONUMENTS DESTROYED 

Louvain, that it has been shelled and burned, that 
many of its defenseless men have been shot, and that its 
women are hunted and homeless. We have not yet 
been told, but doubtless shall hear in due course, that 
the splendid thirteenth-century church of Notre Dame, 
the most complete example of pointed Gothic archi- 
tecture in Belgium, has perished amid the general 
destruction. The reason of this sack and pillage of 
town after town in Belgium, with every accompaniment 
of murderous barbarity — Termonde is another melan- 
choly CEise in point — is becoming obvious. It is due 
to the resolute resistance of Antwerp. The Germans 
want to capture Antwerp, but can not spare enough 
men to invest the fortress, and in any case hope to 
obtain it without paying the price. They seek to 
terrorize Antwerp into submission by laying Belgium 
waste, by razing her undefended cities to the ground, 
and by shedding the blood of innocent Belgian citizens 
of both sexes. . . . The wilful devastation of Belgium 
will have only one definite result. It will increase the 
chorus of indignant denunciation of German methods 
of warfare which now rises from every civilized country 
in the world." 



168 



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BURXIXG OF THE CATHEDRAL OF RHElMf?. 

This noble building, one of the finest pieces of Gothic architecture in 
the world, was bombarded by German shells and set on five. Much of the 
priceless statuary and the entire roof were destroyed. 




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CHAPTER XVI 

WANTON DESTRUCTION OF THE BEAUTI- 
FUL CATHEDRAL OF RHEIMS 

DESECRATION OF THE SHRINES OF HUMANITY 

THE "royal city" CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE DAME 

— ^ART TREASURES CATHEDRAL A TARGET ^ANGER 

OF CROWD STILLED BY PRIESTS "SUPREME SACRI- 
FICE AGAINST THE SPIRIT OF MAN" — BEAUTY 
IRREPARABLY GONE. 

IF THE destruction of famous buildings, shrines of 
humanity as well as of art and religion, were but put 
down to the unavoidable accidents of war, after the 
first poignant sense of the irreparable loss, one would 
rather sorrowfully accept the smoking ruins as further 
evidence of the horrible, if unavoidable, waste of war. 
But to have Louvain's atrocities justified, to have 
the destruction of towns systematically brought about 
in a spirit of fiendish reprisal or as part of a propa- 
ganda of military terrorism, this is what revolts the 
world. It is this demoniacal barbarism, raised to the 
ultimate power for evil by modern mechanism, that 
staggers civilization. 

The^sacking of Louvain had hardly ceased to be a 
matter of world-wide outcry against such inexcusable 
barbarity when there came the official report that the 
Cathedral of Rheims, one of the most glorious 
examples of Gothic art in the world and an historic 

169 



CATHEDRAL AT RHEIMS DESTROYED 



monument of first rank, had fallen before the German 
guns in the bombardment of that historic city. 



THE "royal city" 



Rheims has been a city of importance since the time 
of the Romans. The cathedral, wherein for nearly 
1,000 years the kings of France were crowned, has 
been fittingly described as 'Hhe most perfect 
example in grandeur and grace of Gothic style in 
existence." 

Hincmar, a mighty archbishop of the ninth century, 
once declared that Rheims was "by the appointment 
of Heaven a royal city." 

The words are at once historical and prophetic. 
Here Clovis was baptized by St. Remigius, and 
here in the cathedral in 1429, Charles VII of 
France was crowned through the efforts of Joan of 

Arc. 

According to the historians of art, Rheims is royal 
in another sense. In no city in Europe have the life 
and thought of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance 
found such perfect expression in architecture. From 
early Gothic to Romanesque, and from Romanesque 
to Renaissance, the buildings of Rheims reveal better 
than any records the city's historical development. 
Of all the buildings illustrative of their various periods 
there were said to be no better examples than the 
cathedral and the church of St. Jacques, fine monu- 
ments of early Gothic; the later Gothic edifice of the 
archbishop's palace, and, finally, the city hall, a hand- 
some work of the best period of French Renais- 
sance. 
170 



CATHEDRAL AT RHEIMS DESTROYED 



CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE DAME 

No one really knows who designed and built the 
cathedral. The first stones were laid in 1211, and 
the building, with the exception of the superb west 
fagade, was completed in the thirteenth century. The 
fagade, which 
dates from the fflS^^'^'t 
fourteenth cen- 
tury, was adorned 
with three ex- 
quisite recessed 
portals contain- 
ing, in a more or 
less good state of 
preservation, over 
five hundred stat- 
ues. Of the en- 
tire structure, we 
read in "Cathe- 
drals of the Isle 
de France": 
'^ Nothing can ex- 
ceed the majesty of its deeply recessed portals, the 
beauty of the rose window that surmounts them, or 
the elegance of the gallery that completes the fagade." 

ART TREASURES 

The interior, which was cruciform, was 455 feet long 
and 99 feet wide ; the distance from the middle isle to the 
highest point in the roof was 125 feet. Here in niches 
in the walls was another multitude of statues, and in 
the nave and transepts were preserved valuable 

171 




The Christian World! 



CATHEDRAL AT RHEIMS DESTROYED 

tapestry, representing biblical scenes and scenes from 
the history of medieval France. Here also hung a 
treasure of paintings, including canvases by Tintoretto, 
Nicolas Poussin, and others, and some fine old tap- 
estries. 

In the treasury were reliquaries, one said to con- 
tain a thorn from the Holy Crown, the skull of St. 
Remi and a collection of valuable vessels in gold, the 
most remarkable in France. The treasures included 
not only the coronation ornaments of various kings, 
but the vase of St. Ursula, the massive chalice of 
St. Remigius, and countless crucifixes in gold, silver 
and precious woods. 

In thei treasury was also preserved the Sainte 
Ampoule — the vessel in which the oil used to anoint 
the kings of France was preserved — a successor to the 
famous ampulla, which a dove was said to have brought 
from heaven filled with inexhaustible holy oil at the 
time of the baptism of Clovis, in 496. During the 
Revolution the sacred vessel was shattered, but a frag- 
ment was piously preserved, in which some of the oil 
was said still to remain. 

CATHEDRAL A TARGET 

The Cathedral of Notre Dame is now no more than 
an empty shell of charred and blackened walls. The 
fire started between four and five o'clock Sunday after- 
noon, September 20, 1914, after shells had been 
crashing into the town all day. Over five hundred 
fell between early morning and sunset. 

The cathedral had been turned into a hospital for 
the German wounded, to secure for the building the 
172 



CATHEDRAL AT RHEIMS DESTROYED 

protection of the Red Cross flag. When the first 
shell struck the roof everyone believed it was a stray 
shot, but later in the day a German battery four 
miles away, began making the great Gothic pile its 
target. Shell after shell crashed its way into the old 
masonry and stonework that had stood the storms of 
centuries. 

At 4.30 some scaffolding around the east end of 
the cathedral, where repairs were going on, caught 
fire and soon the whole network of poles and planks 
was ablaze. Then the roof of old oak timbers caught 
fire and soon the ceilings of the nave and transepts 
were a roaring furnace. 

The blazing piers of carved woodwork crashed to 
the floor, where piles of straw had been gathered in 
connection with the work of the field hospital. As 
soon as this caught fire the paneling of the altars, the 
chairs and other furniture were devoured. 

Twenty wounded Germans would have perished by 
the efforts of their own countrymen if several French 
army doctors, with their bearers, had not carried them 
one by one at their own risk out of the church by one 
of the side doors. 

ANGER OP CROWD STILLED BY PRIESTS 

There a grim scene was only prevented by the 
courage of the priests of the cathedral. A crowd of 
about two hundred citizens had come out to watch 
the terrible spectacle. As these Germans, in their 
uniforms, appeared at the transept door howls of 
uncontrollable passion went up from the crowd. "Kill 
them!" they shouted. Soldiers in the crowd leveled 

173 



CATHEDRAL AT RHEIMS DESTROYED 

their rifles, when Abbe Andrieux sprang forward 
between the wounded men and the muzzles that 
threatened them. 

''Don't fire," he shouted, ''you would make your- 
selves as guilty as they." 

The reproach was enough, and amid fierce hooting 
and angry cries the Germans were carried to shelter 
in the museum near by. 

From the hills the flaming cathedral was an even 
more impressive sight than in the streets of the town. 
From the yawning roof the red glare poured up into 
the dark sky and its windows flickered with dancing 
flames. So night closed down. Not for long was its 
stillness undisturbed. At two o'clock German batteries 
opened fire again. Then from windows that looked 
toward Rheims across the plain one could watch the 
lurid sight of night bombardment. 

At last daybreak came, a sad gray dawn, with cold, 
dispiriting rain falling. "V^^en the shadows had lifted 
and enough light had filtered through the low, lead- 
colored clouds for one to see across the plain, the 
ravished city, with its ruined cathedral standing stark 
against the background and a vast wall of smoke 
rising slowly from the still flaming ruins, was as 
desolate a thing as the sun could well have found 
in its journey round the world that morning. 

"supreme sacrifice against the spirit of man" 

"Will not every artist, every writer, every lover of 
the beautiful, unite with us in a protestation of horror 
against the infamous destruction of Rheims Cathe- 
dral?" wrote Emile Hovelaque, French Inspector Gen- 
174 



CATHEDRAL AT RHEIMS DESTROYED 

eral of Public Instruction, in a letter to the London 
Times. ''It was the cradle of our kings, the high altar 
of our race, a sanctuary and shrine dear from every 
memor}^, sacred in every thought, loved as our 
remotest past, an ever-speaking witness to the per- 
manence through change of the ideals, aspirations and 
dreams of our country. 

''Can such deeds go unavenged? Will not the con- 
science of the whole world rise against those nameless 
barbarians who shelled Red Cross flags floating over 
that twice-sacred pile, who have committed this 
supreme sacrifice against the spirit of man in seven 
hundred years? Those gray cliffs of chiseled stone had 
risen above the furious tides of innumerable invasions 
unhurt, spared hj the most savage onsets. Battered, 
by every storm of heaven and earth, the noblest sculp- 
ture of the West remained until German culture came. 

"And then, deliberately, methodically, slowly, the 
princes and captains of an accursed race mangled the 
sacred pile until all had fallen. Fairest and most 
human images in all the world, a forest of gigantic 
columns, a vast vaulted canopy of stone, majestic 
walls and heaven-stained glass — it was murder in cold 
blood, the murder not of a life but of immortality. 
Forty-eight long hours the inexplicable crime dragged 
out. Louvain first, now Rheims. What next?" 

BEAUTY IRREPARABLY GONE 

The artistic beauty of the cathedral of Rheims can 
never be restored, in the opinion of Whitney Warren, 
the New York architect, who made a thorough inspec- 
tion of the structure. 

175 



CATHEDRAL AT RHEIMS DESTROYED 

Mr. Warren, who is a corresponding member of the 
Institut de France, was given the privilege of visiting 
the cathedral. His investigation had no official char- 
acter, but the result of his observations was com- 
municated to Myron T. Herrick, American Ambassa- 
dor to Belgium. 

''That anything remains of the edifice," said Mr. 
Warren, ''is due to the strong construction of the walls 
and vaults which are of a robustness that can resist 
even modern implements of war." 

The building was not battered by the heavier guns, 
as had been feared, but it suffered most from shrapnel 
fire. The famous rose windows, the sculpture and 
other details of the fagade that were ruined are, how- 
ever, just the examples of art that can not be replaced. 

Statues, gargoyles, and other ornaments on the 
exterior of the cathedral have been tumbled to the 
pavement and shattered, though at first glance the 
outer walls of the cathedral do not show the ruin that 
has taken place. These blackened walls yet stand 
as a monument to the glory of France, but still more 
as a grim reminder of the barbarity of German 
warfare. 



176 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE CANADIANS' GLORIOUS FEAT AT 
LANGEMARCK 

THE CRUCIAL TEST OF CANADa's MEN WONDERFUL 

STORY OF HEROISM AS TOLD BY SIR MAX AITKEN 

A REMARKABLE PERFORMANCE QUIET PRECEDING 

STORM SECOND BATTLE OF YPRES ^LINE NEVER 

WAVERED OFFICER FELL AT HEAD OF TROOPS 

FORTUNES OF THIRD BRIGADE IN DIRE PERIL 

OVERWHELMING NUMBERS PUT TO TEST CAPTURE 

OF ST. JULIEN ^A HERO LEADING HEROES. 

THE FIGHT of the Canadians at Langemarck and 
St. Julien in April, 1915, makes such a battle story as 
has sufficed, in other nations, to inspire song and 
tradition for centuries. In the words of Sir John 
French, the Canadians, by holding their ground when 
it did not seem humanly possible to hold it, ''saved the 
situation," kept the enemy out of Ypres, kept closed 
the road to Calais, and made a failure of German 
plans that otherwise were about to be successful. 

The Canadian soldiers have indeed shown that they 
are second to none. They were put to as supreme a 
test as it would be possible for any army to meet with, 
for they fought overwhelming numbers under condi- 
tions that seemed to ensure annihilation. They fought 
on, and failed neither in courage, discipline, nor 
tenacity, although thousands of them fell. 

12 177 



CANADIANS' GLORIOUS FEAT 

The story of their unflinching heroism was told by Sir 
Max Aitken, the record officer serving with the 
Canadian division in France: 

"The recent fighting in Flanders, in which the 
Canadians played so glorious a part, cannot of course 
be described with precision of military detail until 
'time has made possible the co-ordination of relevant 
facts, and the piecing together in a narrative both 
lucid and exact of much which, so near the event, is 
confused and blurred. But it is considered right that 
the mourning in Canada for husbands, sons or brothers 
who have given their lives for the Empire should have 
with as little reserve as military considerations allow 
the rare and precious consolation which, in the agony 
of bereavement, the record of the valor of their dead 
must bring, and indeed the mourning in Canada will 
be very widely spread, for the battle which raged for 
so many days in the neighborhood of Ypres was bloody, 
even as men appraise battles in this callous and life- 
engulfing war. But as long as brave deeds retain the 
power to fire the blood of Anglo-Saxons, the stand made 
by the Canadians in those desperate days will be told 
by fathers to their sons. 

A REMARKABLE PERFORMANCE 

"The Canadians have wrested the trenches over the 
bodies of the dead and earned the right to stand side 
by side with the superb troops who, in the first battle 
of Ypres, broke and drove before them the flower of 
the Prussian Guards. Looked at from any point the 
performance would be remarkable. It is amazing to 
soldiers when the genesis and composition of the 
178 



CANx\DIANS' GLORIOUS FEAT 

Canadian division are considered. It contained no 
doubt a sprinkling of South African veterans, but it 
consisted in the main of men who were admirable raw 
material, but who, at the outbreak of war, were neither 
disciplined nor trained as men count discipline and 
training in these days of scientific warfare. It was, it 
is true, commanded by a distinguished English general. 
Its staff was supplemented, without being replaced, by 
some briUiant British staff officers. But in its higher 
and regimental commands were to be found lawyers, 
college professors, business men and real estate agents, 
ready with cool self-confidence to do battle against an 
organization in which the study of military science is 
the exclusive pursuit of laborious lives. 

''With what devotion, with a valor how desperate, 
with resourcefulness how cool and how frightful, the 
amateur soldier of Canada confronted overwhelming 
odds, may perhaps be made clear, even by a narrative 
so incomplete as the present. 

''The salient of Ypres has become familiar to all 
students of the campaign in Flanders. Like all salients 
it was, and was known to be, a source of wealmess to 
the forces holding it, but the reasons which have led to 
its retention are apparent, and need not be explained. 

"On Thursday, April 22, 1915, the Canadian division 
held a line of roughly five thousand yards, extending 
in a northwesterly direction from the Ypres-Roulers 
railway, to the Ypres-Poekappelle road, and connecting 
at its terminus with the French troops. The division 
consisted of three infantry brigades in addition to the 
artillery brigades. Of the infantry brigades the first 
was in reserve, the second was on the right, and the third 

179 



CANADIANS* GLORIOUS PEAT 

established contact with the allies at the point indicated 
above. 

QUIET PRECEDING STORM 

"The day was a peaceful one, warm and sunny, and 
except that the previous day had witnessed a further 
bombardment of the stricken town of Ypres, every- 
thing seemed quiet in front of the Canadian line. At 
five o'clock in the afternoon a plan carefully prepared 
was put into execution against our French allies on the 
left. Asphyxiating gas of great intensity was pro- 
jected into their trenches, probably by means of force 
pumps and pipes laid out under the parapets. The 
fumes, aided by a favorable wind, floated backwards, 
poisoning and disabling over an extended area those 
who fell under their effect. The result was that the 
French were compelled to give ground for a considerable 
distance. The glory which the French army has won 
in this war would make it impertinent to labor on the 
compelling nature of the poisonous discharges under 
which the trenches were lost. The French did, as every- 
one knew they would do, all that stout soldiers could 
do, and the Canadian division, officers and men, look 
forward to many occasions in the future in which they 
will stand side by side with the brave armies of France. 

"The immediate consequence of this enforced with- 
drawal was, of course, extremely grave. The third 
brigade of the Canadian division was without any left, 
or, in other words, its left was in the air. It became 
imperatively necessary greatly to extend the Canadian 
lines to the left rear. It was not, of course, practicable 
to move the first brigade from reserve at a moment's 
180 



CANADIANS' GLORIOUS FEAT 



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Shaded Portion Indicates German Gain. 



notice, and the line, extended from five to nine thousand 
yards, was not naturally the line that had been held by 
the allies at five o'clock, and a gap still existed on its left. 

181 



CANADIANS' GLORIOUS FEAT 

'^The new line, of which our recent point of contact 
with the French formed the apex, ran quite roughly 
to the south and west. As shown above, it became 
necessary for Brigadier-General Turner, commanding 
the third brigade, to throw back his left flank south- 
ward to protect his rear. In the course of the confusion 
which followed upon the readjustment of position, the 
enemy, who had advanced rapidly after his initial 
successes, took four British 4.7 guns in a small wood 
to the west of the village of St. Julien, two miles in the 
rear of the original French trenches. 

SECOND BATTLE OF YPRES 

"The story of the second battle of Ypres is the story 
of how the Canadian division, enormously outnum- 
bered, for they had in front of them at least four 
divisions, supported by immensely heavy artillery, 
with a gap still existing, though reduced, in their lines, 
and with dispositions made hurriedly under the stimu- 
lus of critical danger, fought through the day and 
through the night, and then through another day and 
night; fought under their officers until, as happened 
to so many, these perished gloriously, and then fought 
from the impulsion of sheer valor because they came 
from fighting stock. 

''The eneni}^, of course, was aware, whether fully 
or not may perhaps be doubted, of the advantage his 
breach in the line had given him, and immediately 
began to push a formidable series of attacks upon the 
whole of the newl^^-formed Canadian salient. 

''If it is possible to distinguish when the attack was 
everywhere so fierce, it developed with particular 
182 



CANADIANS' GLORIOUS FEAT 

intensity at this moment upon the apex of the newly- 
formed line running in the direction of St. Julien. It 
has already been stated that four British guns were 
taken in a wood comparatively early in the evening 
of the 22d. In the course of that night, and under 
the heaviest machine-gun fire, this wood was assaulted 
by the Canadian Scottish, sixteenth battalion, of the 
third brigade, and the tenth battalion of the second 
brigade, which was intercepted for this purpose on its 
way to a reserve trench. The battalions were respec- 
tively commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Leckie, and 
Lieutenant-Colonel Boyle, and after a most fierce 
struggle in the light of a misty moon they took the 
position at the point of the bayonet. At midnight 
the second battalion, under Lieutenant-Colonel Watson 
and the Toronto regiment. Queen's Own (third bat- 
talion), under Lieutenant-Colonel Rennie, both of the 
first brigade, brought up much-needed reinforcements, 
and though not actually engaged in the assault, were 
in reserve. 

LINE NEVER WAVERED 

'^All through the following days and nights these 
battalions shared the fortunes and misfortunes of the 
third brigade. An officer, who took part in the attack, 
describes how the men about him fell under the fire 
of the machine guns, which, in his phrase, played upon 
them 'like a watering pot.' He added quite simply, 
'I wrote my own life off,' but the line never wavered. 
When one man fell another took his place, and with a 
final shout the survivors of the two battalions flung 
themselves into the wood. 

183 



CANADIANS' GLORIOUS FEAT 

''The German garrison was completely demoralized, 
and the impetuous advance of the Canadians did not 
cease until they reached the far side of the wood and 
entrenched themselves there in the position so dearly 
gained. They had, however, the disappointment of 
finding that the guns had been blown up by the enemy, 
and later on the same night, a most formidable con- 
centration of artillery fire, sweeping the wood as a 
tropical storm sweeps the leaves from a forest, made 
it impossible for them to hold the position for which 
they had sacrified so much. 

"The fighting continued without intermission all 
through the night and to those who observed the 
indications that the attack was being pushed with 
ever-growing strength, it hardly seemed possible that 
the Canadians, fighting in positions so difficult to 
defend, and so little the subject of deliberate choice, 
could maintain their resistance for any long period. 
At 6 A. M. on Friday it became apparent that the left 
was becoming more and more involved and a powerful 
German attempt to outflank it developed rapidly. 
The consequences if it had be^n broken or outflanked 
need not be insisted upon. They were not merely 
local. 

"It was therefore decided, formidable as the attempt 
undoubtedly was, to try and give relief by a counter- 
attack upon the first line of German trenches, now far, 
far advanced from those originally occupied by the 
French. This was carried out by the Ontario first 
and fourth battalions of the first brigade, under Briga- 
dier-General Mercer, acting in combination with a 
British brigade. It is safe to say that the youngest 
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private in the rank, as he set his teeth for the advance, 
knew the task in front of him, and the youngest subal- 
tern knew all that rested upon its success. 

OFFICER FELL AT HEAD OF TROOPS 

"It did not seem that any human being could live 
in the shower of shot and shell which began to play 
upon the advancing troops. They suffered terrible 
casualties. For a short time every man seemed to 
fall, but the attack was pressed even closer and closer. 
The fourth Canadian battalion at one moment came 
under a particularly withering fire. For a moment, 
not more, it wavered. Its most gallant commanding 
officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Birchall, carrying, after an 
old fashion, a light cane, coolly and cheerfully rallied 
his men, and at the very moment when his example 
had infected them fell dead at the head of his bat- 
talion. 

''With a hoarse cry of anger they sprang, forward 
(for, indeed, they loved him) as if to avenge his death. 
The astonishing attack which followed, pushed home in 
the face of direct frontal fire, made in broad daylight 
by battalions whose names should live forever in the 
memories of soldiers, was carried to the first line of 
German trenches. After a hand-to-hand struggle 
the last German who resisted was bayoneted, and the 
trench was won. 

''The measure of this success may be taken when it 
is pointed out that this trench represented in the 
German advance the apex in the breach which the 
enemy had made in the original line of the allies, and 
that it was two and a half miles south of that line. 

185 



CANADIANS' GLORIOUS FEAT 

This charge, made by men who looked death indiffer- 
ently in the face, for no man who took part in it could 
think that he was likely to live; saved the Canadian 
left. But it did more; up to the point where the assail- 
ants conquered or died, it secured and maintained 
during the most critical moment of all the integrity of 
the allied line. For the trench was not only taken, 
it was thereafter held against all comers, and in the 
teeth of every conceivable projectile, until the night 
of Sunday, the 25th, when all that remained of the war- 
broken but victorious battalions was relieved bj^ fresh 
troops. 

FORTUNES OF THIRD BRIGADE 

''It is necessary now to return to the fortunes of the 
third brigade, commanded bj^ Brigadier-General Turner, 
which, as we have seen, at five o'clock on Thurs- 
day was holding the Canadian left and after the first 
attack assumed the defense of the new Canadian salient, 
at the same time sparing all the men it could to form 
an extemporized line between the wood and St. Julien. 
This brigade also was, at the first moment of the German 
offensive, made the object of an attack by the discharge 
of poisonous gas. The discharge was followed by two 
enemy assaults. Although the fumes were extremely 
poisonous, they were not, perhaps, having regard to 
the wind, so disabhng as on the French lines (which 
ran almost east to west), and the brigade, though 
affected by the fumes, stoutly beat back the two 
German assaults. 

''Encouraged by this success, it rose to the supreme 
effort required by the assault of the wood, which has 
186 



CANADIANS' GLORIOUS FEAT 

already been described. At 4 a. m. on the morning of 
Friday, the 23d, a fresh emission of gas was made both 
upon the second brigade, which held the line running 
northeast, and upon the third brigade, which, as has 
been fully explained, had continued the line up to the 
pivotal point, as defined above, and had then spread 
down in a southeasterly direction. It is perhaps worth 
mentioning, that two privates of the forty-eighth 
Highlanders, v/ho found their way into the trenches 
commanded by Colonel Lipsett, ninetieth Winnipeg 
Rifles, eighth battalion, perished of the fumes, and it 
was noticed that their faces became blue immediately 
after dissolution. 

"The Royal Highlanders of Montreal, thirteenth 
battalion, and the forty-eighth Highlanders, fifteenth 
battalion, were more especially affected by the dis- 
charge. The Royal Highlanders, though considerably 
shaken, remained immovable upon their ground. 
The forty-eighth Highlanders, w^ho no doubt received 
a more poisonous discharge, were for the moment dis- 
mayed and indeed their trench, according to the 
testimony of very hardened soldiers, became intoler- 
able. The battahon retired from the trench, but for 
a very short distance, and for an equally short time. 
In a few moments they were again their own. They 
advanced upon and occupied the trenches which they 
had momentarily abandoned. 

IN DIRE PERIL 

''In the course of the same night the third brigade, 
which had already displayed a resource, a gaUantry, 
and a tenacity, for which no eulogy cordd be excessive, 

187 



CANADIANS' GLORIOUS FEAT 

was exposed (and with it the whole aUied cause) to a 
peril still more formidable. 

''It has been explained, and indeed the fundamental 
situation made the peril clear, that several German 
divisions were attempting to crush, or drive back this 
devoted brigade, and in any event to use their enor- 
mous numerical superiority to sweep around and over- 
whelm our left wing at a point in the line which cannot 
be precisely determined. The last attempt partially 
succeeded, and in the course of this critical struggle, 
German troops in considerable, though not in over- 
whelming, numbers swung past the unsupported left 
to the brigade and, slipping in between the wood and 
St. Julien, added to the torturing anxieties of the long- 
drawn-out struggle by the appearance, and indeed for 
the moment the reality, of isolation from the brigade 
base. 

"In the exertions made by the third brigade during 
this supreme crisis, it is almost impossible to single 
out one battalion without injustice to others, but 
though the efforts of the Royal Highlanders of Mon- 
treal, thirteenth battalion, were only equal to those 
of the other battalions who did such heroic service, it 
so happened by chance that the fate of some of its 
officers attracted special attention. 

''Major Norsworthy, already almost disabled by a 
bullet wound, was bayoneted and killed while he was 
rallying his men with easy cheerfulness. The case of 
Captain McCuaig, of the same battalion, was not less 
glorious, although his death can claim no witness. 
This most gallant officer was seriously wounded in a 
hurriedly constructed trench. At a moment when it 
188 



CANADIANS' GLORIOUS FEAT 

would have been possible to remove him to safety, he 
absolutely refused to move, and continued in the 
discharge of his duty. But the situation grew in- 
stantly worse, and peremptory orders were received 
for an immediate withdrawal. Those who were com- 
pelled to obey them were most insistent to carry 
with them, at whatever risk to their own mobility and 
safety, an officer to whom they were devotedly attached. 
But he, knowing, it may be, better than they, the 
exertions which still lay in front of them, and unwilling 
to inflict upon them the disabilities of a maimed man, 
very resolutely refused, and asked of them one thing 
only, that there should be given to him as he lay alone 
in the trench, two loaded Colt revolvers to add to his 
own, which lay in his right hand as he made his last 
request. And so, with three revolvers ready to his 
hand for use, a very brave officer waited to sell his life, 
wounded and racked with pain, in an abandoned 
trench. 

''On Friday afternoon the left of the Canadian line 
was strengthened by important reinforcements of 
British troops, amounting to seven battalions. From 
this time forward the Canadians also continued to 
receive further assistance on the left from a series of 
French counter-attacks pushed in a northeasterly 
direction from the canal bank. 

OVERWHELMING NUMBERS 

''But the artillery fire of the enemy continually 
grew in intensity, and it became more and more evident 
that the Canadian salient could no longer be main- 
tained against the overwhelming superiority of 

189 



CANADIANS' GLORIOUS FEAT 

numbers by which it was assailed. Slowly, stub- 
bornly, and contesting every 3^ard, the defenders 
gave ground until the salient gradually receded 
from the apex near the point where it had orig- 
inally aligned with the French, and fell back upon 
St. John. 

''Soon it became evident that even St. Jidien, 
exposed from right and left, was no longer tenable in 
the face of overwhelming numerical superiority. The 
third brigade was therefore ordered to retreat further 
south, selling every yard of ground as dearly as it had 
done since five o'clock on Thursday. But it was 
found impossible, without hazarding fa.r larger forces, 
to disentangle the detachment of the Royal High- 
landers of Montreal, thirteenth battalion, and of the 
Royal Montreal Regiment, fourteenth battalion. The 
brigade was ordered, and not a moment too soon, to 
move back. It left these units with hearts as heavy as 
those of his comrades who had said farewell to Captain 
McCuaig. 

"The German line rolled, indeed, over the deserted 
village, but for several hours after the enemy had 
become master of the village the sullen and persistent 
rifle fire which survived showed that they were not yet 
master of the Canadian rear guard. If they died, they 
died worthy of Canada. The enforced retirement of 
the third brigade (and to have stayed longer would 
have been madness) reproduced for the second brigade, 
commanded by Brigadier-General Curry, in a singu- 
larly exact fashion the position of the third brigade 
itself at the moment of the withdrawal of the 
French. 
190 



CANADIANS' GLORIOUS FEAT 

SECOND BRIGADE PUT TO TEST 

''The second brigade, it must be remembered, had 
retained the whole Hne of trenches, roughly five hundred 
yards, which it was holding at five o'clock on Thursday 
afternoon, supported by the incomparable exertions 
of the third brigade, and by the highly hazardous 
deployment in which necessity had involved that 
brigade. The second brigade had maintained its lines. 
It now devolved upon General Curry, commanding 
this brigade, to reproduce the tactical maneuvers by 
which earlier in the fight the third brigade had adapted 
itself to the flank movement of overwhelming numerical 
superiority. He flung his left flank round and his 
record is that in the very crisis of this immense struggle 
he held his line of trenches from Thursday at five 
o'clock until Sunday afternoon, and on Sunday after- 
noon he had not abandoned his trenches. There were 
none left. They had been obliterated by artillery. 
He withdrew his undefeated troops from the fragments 
of his field fortifications, and the hearts of his men 
were as complete^ unbroken as the parapets of his 
trenches were completely broken. Such a brigade! 

"It is invidious to single out any battalion for 
special praise, but it is perhaps necessary to the story 
to point out that Lieutenant-Colonel Lipsett, com- 
manding the ninetieth Winnipeg Rifles, eighth bat- 
talion, of the second brigade, held the extreme left 
of the brigade position at the most critical moment. 

"The battalion was expelled from the trenches 
early on Friday morning by an emission of poisonous 
gas, but recovering in three-quarters of an hour, it 
counter-attacked, retook the trenches it had abandoned 

191 



CANADIANS' GLORIOUS FEAT 

and bayoneted the enemy, and after the third brigade 
had been forced to retire, Lieutenant-Colonel Lipsett 
held his position, though his left was in the air, until 
two British regiments filled up the gap on Saturday 
night. 

CAPTURE OF ST. JULIEN 

"The individual fortunes of those two brigades 
have brought us to the events of Sunday afternoon, 
but it is necessary, to make the story complete, 
to recur for a moment to the events of the 
morning. 

"After a very formidable attack the enemy suc- 
ceeded in capturing the village of St. Julien, which has 
so often been referred to in describing the fortunes of 
the Canadian left. This success opened up a new and 
formidable line of advance, but by this time further 
reinforcements had arrived. Here again it became 
evident that the tactical necessities of the situation 
dictated an offensive movement, as the surest method 
of arresting further progress. 

"General Alderson, who was in command of the 
reinforcements, accordingly directed that an advance 
should be made by a British brigade which had been 
brought up in support. The attack was thrust through 
the Canadian left and center, and as the troops making 
it swept on, many of them going to certain death, they 
paused an instant, and with deep-throated cheers for 
Canada gave the first indication to the division of the 
warm admiration which their exertions had excited in 
the British army. 

"The advance was indeed costly, but it could not 
192 



CANADIANS' GLORIOUS FEAT 

be gainsaid. The story is one of which the brigade 
may be proud, but it does not belong to the special 
account of the fortunes of the Canadian contingent. 
It is sufficient for our purpose to notice that the attack 
succeeded in its object, and the German advance 
along the line, which was momentarily threatened, 
was arrested. 

"We had reached, in describing the events of the 
afternoon, the points at which the trenches of the 
second brigade had been completely destroyed. This 
brigade and the third brigade, and the considerable 
reinforcements which by this time filled the gap between 
the two brigades, were gTadually driven, fighting every 
yard, upon a line running, roughly, from Fortuin, south 
of St. Julien, in a northeasterly direction towards 
Passchendale. Here the two brigades were relieved 
by two British brigades, after exertions as glorious, 
as fruitful, and, alas! as costly, as soldiers have ever 
been called upon to make. 

''Monday morning broke bright and clear, and found 
the Canadians behind the firing line. This day, too, 
was to bring its anxieties. The attack was stiU pressed, 
and it became necessary to ask Brigadier-General 
Curry whether he could once more call upon his 
shrunken brigade. 

A HERO LEADING HEROES 

"'The men are tired,' this indomitable soldier 
replied, 'but they are ready and glad to go again to 
the trenches.' And so once more, a hero leading 
heroes, the general marched back the men of the 
second brigade, reduced to a quarter of its original 

13 193 



CANADIANS' GLORIOUS FEAT 

strength, to the apex of the line as it existed at that 
moment. 

'^ This position he held all day Monday. On Tuesday 
he was still occupying reserve trenches, and on Wednes- 
day was relieved and retired to billets in the rear. 

"Such, in the most general outline, is the story of a 
great and glorious feat of arms. A story told so soon 
after the event, while tendering bare justice to units 
whose doings fell under the eyes of particular observers, 
must do less than justice to others who played their 
part — and all did — as gloriously as those whose special 
activities it is possible, even at this stage, to describe. 
But the friends of men who fought in other battalions 
may be content in the knowledge that they, too, shall 
learn, when time allows, the exact part which each 
unit played in these unforgettable days." 



194 



CHAPTER XVIII 

PITIFUL FLIGHT OF A MILLION WOMEN 

By Philip Gibbs 
Of the London Daily Chronicle 

THE GERMAN ADVANCE UPON PARIS — THE PRIZE 

OF PARIS ^HEROIC EFFORTS OF FRENCH SOLDIERS 

GERMANS BALKED OF THEIR PRIZE SIXTY MILES 

OF FUGITIVES TERROR IN EYES PARIS THE 

BEAUTIFUL. 

[The following article is reproduced by the courtesy of the 
New York Times.] 

AT LEAST a million German soldiers — ^that is no 
exaggeration of a light pen, but the sober and actual 
truth — were advancing steadily upon the capital of 
France. They were close to Beauvais when I escaped 
from what was then a death-trap. They were fighting 
our British troops at Creil when I came to that town. 
Upon the following days they were holding our men in 
the Forest of Compiegne. They had been as near to 
Paris as Senlis, almost within gunshot of the outer forts. 

"Nothing seems to stop them," said many soldiers 
with whom I spoke. ''We kill them and kill them, but 
they come on." 

The situation seemed to me almost ready for the 
supreme tragedy — the capture or destruction of Paris. 
The northwest of France lay very open to the enemy, 

195 



FLIGHT OF A MILLION WOMEN 

abandoned as far south as Abbeville and Amiens, too 
lightly held by a mixed army corp^^ uf French and 
Algerian troops with their headquarters at Aumale. 

Here was an easy way to Paris. 

Always obsessed with the idea that the Germans 
must come from the east, the almost fatal error of this 
war, the French had girdled Paris with almost impene- 
trable forts on the east side, from those of Ecouen and 
Montmorency, by the far-flung forts of Chelles and 
Champigny, to those of Susy and Villeneuve, on the 
outer lines of the triple cordon; but on the west side, 
between Pontoise and Versailles, the defenses of Paris 
were weak. I say, 'Svere," because during the last 
days thousands of men were digging trenches and 
throwing up ramparts. Only the snakelike Seine, 
twining into a Pegoud loop, forms a natural defense to 
the western approach to the citj^, none too secure 
against men who have crossed many rivers in their 
desperate assaults. 

THE PRIZE OF PARIS , 

This, then, was the Germans' chance; it was for 
this that they had fought their wa}^ westward and 
southward through incessant battlefields from Mons 
and Charleroi to St. Quentin and Amiens and do"\^m 
to Creil and Compiegne, flinging away human life as 
though it were but rubbish for death-pits. The prize 
of Paris, Paris the great and beautiful, seemed to be 
within their grasp. 

It was their intention to smash their way into it by 
this western entry and then to skin it alive. Holding 
this city at ransom, it was their idea to force France to 
196 



F L I G H T O r A MILLION WOMEN 



her knees under threat of making a vast and desolate 
ruin of all those palaces and churches and noble build- 
ings in which the soul of French history is enshrined. 

I am not saying these things from rumor and hearsay, 
I am writing from the evidence of m.j own eyes after 
traveling several hundreds of miles in France along 
the main strateg- 
ical lines, grim 
sentinels guard- 
ing the last bar- 
riers to that ap- 
proaching death 
which was sweep- 
ing on its way 
through France 
to the rich har- 
vest of Paris. 

There was only 
one thing to do 
to escape from 
the menace of 
this death. By 
all the ways open, 
by any way, the 
population of 
Paris emptied itself like rushing rivers of humanity 
along all the lines which promised anything like safety. 

Only those stayed behind to whom life means very 
little away from Paris and who if death came desired 
to die in the city of their life. 

Again I write from what I saw and to tell the honest 
truth from what I suffered, for the fatigue of this 

197 




The Anxious Hour. 



FLIGHT OF A MILLION WOMEN 

hunting for facts behind the screen of war is exhausting 
to all but one's moral strength, and even to that. 
"^I found myself in the midst of a new and extraor- 
dinary activity of the French and English armies. 
Regiments were being rushed up to the center of the 
allied forces toward Creil, Montdidier, and Noyon. 
This great movement continued for several days, 
putting to a severe test the French railway system, 
which is so wonderfully organized that it achieved 
this mighty transportation of troops with clockwork 
regularity. Working to a time-table dictated by some 
great brain in the headquarters of the French army, 
there were calculated with perfect precision the con- 
ditions of a network of lines on which troop trains 
might be run to a given point. It was an immense 
victory of organization, and a movement which 
heartened one observer at least to believe that the Ger- 
man death-blow would again be averted. 

HEROIC EFFORTS OF FRENCH SOLDIERS 

I saw regiment after regiment entraining. Men 
from the Southern Provinces, speaking the patois of 
the South; men from the Eastern Departments whom 
I had seen a month before, at the beginning of the war, 
at Chalons and Epernay and Nancy, and men from 
the southwest and center of France, in garrisons 
along the Loire. They were aU in splendid spirits 
and utterly undaunted by the rapidity of the German 
advance. 

"It is nothing, my little one," said a dirty, unshaved 
gentleman with the laughing eyes of a D'Artagnan; 
''we shall bite their heads off. These brutal 'bosches' 
198 



FLIGHT OF A MILLION WOMEN 

are going to put themselves in a ^guet-apens/ a veritable 
death-trap. We shall have them at last." 

Many of them had fought at Longwy and along the 
heights of the Vosges. The youngest of them had 
bristling beards, their blue coats with turned-back flaps 
were war-worn and flanked with the dust of long 
marches; their red trousers were sloppy and stained, 
but they had not forgotten how to laugh, and the 
gallantry of their spirits was a joy to see. 

They are very proud, these French soldiers, of 
fighting side by side with their old foes. The English 
now, after long centuries of strife, from Edward, the 
Black Prince, to Wellington, are their brothers-in-arms 
upon the battle-fields, and because I am English they 
offered me their cigarettes and made me one of them. 
But I realized even then that the individual is of no 
account in this inhuman business of war. 

It is only masses of men that matter, moved by 
common obedience at the dictation of mysterious far- 
off powers, and I thanked Heaven that masses of men 
were on the move rapidly in vast numbers and in the 
right direction to support the French lines which had 
fallen back from Amiens a few hours before I left that 
town, and whom I had followed in their retirement, 
back and back, with the English always strengthening 
their left, but retiring with them almost to the outskirts 
of Paris itself. 

Only this could save Paris — the rapid strengthening 
of the allied front by enormous reserves strong enough 
to hold back the arrow-shaped battering ram of the 
enemy's main army. 

Undoubtedly the French headquarters staff was 

199 



FLIGHT OF A MILLION WOMEN 

working heroically and with fine intelligence to save 
the situation at the very gates of Paris. The country 
was being swept absolutely clean of troops in all parts 
of France, where they had been waiting as reserves. 

It was astounding to me to see, after those three 
days of rushing troop trains and of crowded stations 
not large enough to contain the regiments, how an 
air of profomid solitude and peace had taken posses- 
sion of all these routes. 

In my long journey through and about France and 
circling round Paris I found myself wondering some- 
times whether all this war had not been a dreadful 
illusion without reality, and a transformation had 
taken place, startling in its change, from military tur- 
moil to rural peace. 

Dijon was emptied of its troops. The road to 
Chalons was deserted by all but fugitives. The great 
armed camp at Chalons itself had been cleared out 
except for a small garrison. The troops at Tours had 
gone northward to the French center. All our English 
reserves had been rushed up to the front from Havre 
and Rouen. 

There was only one deduction to be drawn from this 
great, swift movement — the French and English lines 
had been supported by every available battalion to save 
Paris from its menace of destruction, to meet the 
weight of the enemy's metal by a force strong enough 
to resist its mighty mass. • 

GERMANS BALKED OF THEIR PRIZE 

It was still possible that the Germans might be 
smashed on their left wing, hurled back to the west 
200 




The Great Gebman Howitzees. 
Hauling a German twenty-one centimeter Howitzer on its firing mat 
with a purchase on the wheels, which are fitted with caterpillar pads to 
prevent sinking into poft mud. 



FLIGHT OF A MILLION WOMEN 

between Paris and the sea, and cut off from their line 
of communications. It was undoubtedly this impending 
peril which scared the enemy's headquarters staff 
and upset all its calculations. They had not antic- 
ipated the rapidity of the supporting movement 
of the allied armies, and at the very gates of 
Paris they saw themselves balked of their prize, the 
greatest prize of the war, by the necessity of changing 
front. 

To do them justice, they realized instantly the new 
order of things, and with quick and marvelous decision 
did not hesitate to alter the direction of their main 
force. Instead of proceeding to the west of Paris they 
swung round steadily to the southeast in order to 
keep their armies away from the enveloping move- 
ment of the French and English and drive their 
famous wedge-like formation southward for the 
purpose of dividing the allied forces of the west from 
the French army of the east. The miraculous had 
happened, and Paris, for a little time at least, was 
unmolested. 

After wandering along the westerly and southerly 
roads I started for Paris when thousands and scores of 
thousands were flying from it. At that time I believed, 
as all France believed, that in a few hours German 
shells would be crashing across the fortifications of the 
city and that Paris the beautiful would be Paris the 
infernal. It needed a good deal of resolution on my 
part to go deliberately to a city from which the popu- 
lation was fleeing, and I confess quite honestly that I 
had a nasty sensation in the neighborhood of my waist- 
coat buttons at the thought. 

201 



PLIGHT OF A MILLION WOMEN 

SIXTY MILES OF FUGITIVES 

Along the road from Tours to Paris there were 
sixty unbroken miles of people — on my honor, I do 
not exaggerate, but write the absolute truth. They 
were all people who had despaired of breaking through 
the dense masses of their fellow-citizens camped around 
the railway stations, and had decided to take the roads 
as the only way of escape. 

The vehicles were taxicabs, for which the rich paid 
fabulous prices; motor cars which had escaped military 
requisition, farmers' carts laden with several families 
and piles of household goods, shop carts drawn by 
horses already tired to the point of death because of the 
weight of the people who crowded behind, pony traps 
and governess carts. 

Many persons, well dressed and belonging obviously 
to well-to-do bourgeoisie, were wheeling barrows like 
costers, but instead of trundling cabbages were pushing 
forward sleeping babies and little children, who seemed 
on the first stage to find new amusement and excitement 
in the journey from home; but for the most part they 
trudged along bravely, carrying their babies and hold- 
ing the hands of their little ones. 

They were of all classes, rank and fortune being 
annihilated by the common tragedy. Elegant women 
whose beauty is known in Paris salons, whose frivolity, 
perhaps, in the past was the main purpose of their life, 
were now on a level with the peasant mothers of 
the French suburbs and with the ^'midinettes" of Mont- 
martre, and their courage did not fail them so quickly. 

I looked into many proud, brave faces of these 
delicate women, walking in high-heeled shoes, all too 
202 



FLIGHT OF A MILLION WOMEN 

frail for the hard, dUsty roadways. They belonged to 
the same race and breed as those ladies who defied 
death with fine disdain upon the scaffold of the guillo- 
tine in the great Revolution. 

They were leaving Paris now, not because of any 
fears for themselves — I believe they were fearless — but 
because they had decided to save the little sons and 
daughters of soldier fathers. 

This great army in retreat was made up of every type 
familiar in Paris. 

Here were women of the gay world, poor creatures 
whose painted faces had been washed with tears, and 
whose tight skirts and white stockings were never made 
for a long march down the highways of France. 

Here also were thousands of those poor old ladies 
who live on a few francs a week in the top attics of the 
Paris streets which Balzac knew; they had fled from their 
poor sanctuaries and some of them were still carrying 
cats and canaries, as dear to them as their own lives. 

There was one young woman who walked with a pet 
monkey on her shoulder while she carried a bird in a 
golden cage. Old men, who remembered 1870, gave 
their arms to old ladies to whom they had made love 
when the Prussians were at the gates of Paris then. 

It was pitiful to see these old people now hobbling 
along together — ^pitiful, but beautiful also, because 
of their lasting love. 

Young boy students, with ties as black as their hats 
and rat-tail hair, marched in small companies of 
comrades, singing brave songs, as though they had no 
fear in their hearts, and very little food, I think, in 
their stomachs. 

203 



FLIGHT OF A MILLION WOMEN 

Shopgirls and concierges, city clerks, old aristocrats, 
young boys and girls, who supported grandfathers and 
grandmothers and carried new-born babies and gave 
pick-a-back rides to little brothers and sisters, came 
along the way of retreat. 

TERROR IN EYES 

Each human being in the vast torrent of life will 
have an unforgettable story of adventure to tell if Hfe 
remains. As a novelist I should have been glad to 
get their narratives along this road for a great story 
of suffering and strange adventure, but there was no 
time for that and no excuse. 

When I met many of them they were almost beyond 
the power of words. The hot sun of this September 
had beaten down upon them — scorching them as in 
the glow of molten metal. Their tongues clave to their 
mouths with thirst. 

Some of them had that wild look in their eyes which 
is the first sign of the delirium of thirst and fatigue. 

Nothing to eat or drink could be found on the way 
from Paris. The little roadside cafes had been cleared 
out by the preceding hordes. 

Unless these people carried their own food and drink 
they could have none except of the charity of their 
comrades in misfortune, and that charity has exceeded 
all other acts of heroism in this war. Women gave 
their last biscuit, their last little drop of wine, to poor 
mothers whose children were famishing with thirst and 
hunger; peasant women fed other women's babies 
when their own were satisfied. 

It was a tragic road. At every mile of it there were 
204 



FLIGHTOF A MILLION WOMEN 

people who had fainted on the roadside and poor old 
men and women who could go no farther, but sat on 
the banks below the hedges, weeping silently or bidding 
younger ones go forward and leave them to their fate. 
Young women who had stepped out jauntily at first 
were so footsore and lame that they limped along with 
lines of pain about their lips and eyes. 

Many of the taxicabs, bought at great prices, and 
many of the motor cars had broken down as I passed, 
and had been abandoned by their owners, who had 
decided to walk. Farmers' carts had bolted into 
ditches and lost their wheels. Wlieelbarrows, too 
heavy to be trundled, had been tilted up, with all their 
household goods spilled into the roadway, and the 
children had been carried farther, until at last darkness 
came, and their only shelter was a haystack in a field 
under the harvest moon. 

For days also I have been wedged up with fugitives 
in railway trains more dreadful than the open roads, 
stifling in their heat and heart-racking in their cargoes 
of misery. Poor women have wept hysterically clasping 
my hand, a stranger's hand, for comfort in their 
wretchedness and weakness. Yet on the whole they 
have shown amazing courage, and, after their tears, 
have laughed at their own breakdown, and, always 
the children of France have been superb, so that again 
and again I have wondered at the gallantry with which 
they endured this horror. Young boys have revealed 
the heroic strain in them and have played the part of 
men in helping their mothers. And yet, when I came at 
last into Paris against all this tide of retreat, it seemed 
a needless fear that had driven these people away. 

205 



FLIGHT OF A MILLION WOMEN 

PARIS THE BEAUTIFUL 

Then I passed long lines of beautiful little villas on 
the Seine side, utterly abandoned among their trees 
and flowers. A solitary fisherman held his line above 
the water as though all the world were at peace, and in 
a field close to the fortifications which I expected to see 
bursting with shells, an old peasant bent above the 
furrows and planted cabbages. Then, at last, I walked 
through the streets of Paris and found them strangely 
quiet and tranquil. 

The people I met looked perfectly calm. There were 
a few children playing in the gardens of Champs 
Elys^es and under the Arc de Triomphe symbolical of 
the glory of France. 

I looked back upon the beauty of Paris all golden 
in the light of the setting sun, with its glinting spires 
and white gleaming palaces and rays of light flashing 
in front of the golden trophies of its monuments. Paris 
was still unbroken. No shell had come shattering into 
this city of splendor, and I thanked Heaven that for a 
little while the peril had passed. 



206 



CHAPTER XIX 
FACING DEATH IN THE TRENCHES 

CAVE-DWELLING THE LOT OF MODERN SOLDIERS 

GERMANS HAVE LEARNED MUCH STANDARDIZED 

MODEL FRENCH STUDY OF GERMAN METHODS 

"comforts of home" BRITISH REFUGES IN 

NORTHERN FRANCE " PICNICKING" IN THE OPEN 

AIR RAVAGES OF ARTILLERY FIRE THE COMMON 

ENEMY, THE WEATHER ^WHY COOKS WEAR IRON 

CROSSES "putting ONE OVEr" ON THE RUSSIANS. 

"OTHER times, other manners" applies as accurately 
to the battle-field as it does elsewhere. The cavalry 
charge is nearly extinct, mass formation is going, 
hand-to-hand conflict is rarely found, and now, it 
appears, the old-fashioned and romantic bivouac is no 
more. Trench-fighting has been carried on to such an 
extent in France and Belgium, and Poland, that the 
open camp, with its rows of little tents, outposts, and 
sentry guard, becomes almost a forgotten picture of 
warfare. Doubtless the military schools of the future 
will make provision for special instruction in the 
construction of commodious caverns on the battle- 
field, safe, warm, and containing all the comforts of a 
barrack. 

The modern warrior, like a mole, lives under ground 
and displays his greatest activity at night. With the 
coming of subterranean warfare, as trench-fighting 

. 207 



FACING DEATH IN THE TRENCHES 

can be appropriately called, great armies have had to 
adopt unique methods. They have been compelled 
to build peculiar little forts — for a trench is a fort, in 
fact — wherever their soldiers meet the enemy. In 
consequence these rectangular excavations have been 
improved far beyond their original outline. 

The first trench was nothing more nor less than a 
hole in the ground, deep enough to protect a man 
kneeling, standing, or sitting, as the case might be. 
Before the advent of the modern rifle and modern 
cannon, these defenses, with several feet of loose earth 
thrown up in front of them, served admirably. In 
those days the question of head-cover was of minor 
importance; today a protective roofing is the sine qua 
non of any well-constructed trench. Early in the 
European war it was discovered that the trench 
offered the safest haven from the bursting shells of the 
enemy's field artillery. To aU intents and purposes, 
shrapnel, or, as its inventor termed it, the man-killing 
projectile — is practically harmless in its effect upon 
entrenched troops. Unless a shell can be placed 
absolutely within the two-feet wide excavation it 
wastes its destructive powers on the inoffensive earth 
and air. This has led to a modification of artillery 
methods, which, in turn, compels the elaboration of 
the trench and emphasizes the importance of head- 
cover. 

GERMANS HAVE LEARNED MUCH 

"The history of the great war," to quote from a 
French paper, "will show, among other things, how 
the Germans profited by the lessons of recent conflicts. 
208 



FACING DEATH IN THE TRENCHES 

The South African, the Russo-Japanese, and the 
Balkan wars were studied minutely by them, and their 
particular preparations, their tactics, and their artifices 
result from the knowledge thus acquired. They learned 
much, especially, as regards the formation of trenches. 

''After 1870 we confined ourselves to three regula- 
tion types of trenches: for men prone, kneeling, and 
standing. While in training, our soldiers were taught 
how to take shelter momentarily between advances, 
by digging up the soil a little and lying flat behind the 
smallest of mounds. They were instructed, moreover, 
how to protect themselves from the enemy's fire by 
propping up their knapsacks in front of them. This 
meant insufficient protection, and an extremely danger- 
ous visibility, since the foe, by simply counting the 
number of knapsacks, could know the strength opposed 
to him. To insure the making of such shelter, a French 
company was equipped with eighty picks and eighty 
spades; that is, 160 tools for 250 men. These tools 
were fixed on to the knapsacks; and it took some time 
to bring them into use." 

The German methods for defensive and offensive 
trench-making are quite different. Each man has a 
tool of his own, which is fixed on to the scabbard of 
his sword-bayonet. When occasion for fighting arises, 
the line conceals itself, and, as soon as it is engaged, 
it prepares for possible retreat, making strong positions 
assuring an unrelenting defensive and counter-attacks. 

STANDAEDIZED MODEL 

It is on these sound principles that all the German 
fighting-lines are organized, on a more or less Stan- 
ly 209 



FACING DEATH IN THE TRENCHES 

dardized model. The fighting-lines consist generally 
of one, two, or three lines of shelter-trenches lying 
parallel, measuring twenty or twenty-five inches in 
width, and varying in length according to the number 
they hold; the trenches are joined together by zigzag 
approaches and by a line of reinforced trenches (armed 
with machine guns), which are almost completely 
proof against rifle, machine gun, or gun fire. The 
ordinary German trenches are almost invisible from 
350 yards away, a distance which permits a very deadly 
fire. It is easy to realize that if the enemy occupies 
three successive lines and a line of reinforced entrench- 
ments, the attacking line is likely, at the lowest esti- 
mate, to be decimated during an advance of 650 yards — 
by rifie-fire at a range of 350 yards' distance, and by the 
extremely quick fire of the machine guns, which can 
each deliver from 300 to 600 bullets a minute with 
absolute precision. In the field-trench, it is obvious, 
a soldier enjoys far greater security than he would if 
merely prone behind his knapsack in an excavation 
barely fifteen inches deep. He has merely to stoop 
down a Httle to disappear below the level of the ground 
and be immune from infantry fire; moreover, his 
machine guns can fire without endangering him. In 
addition, this stooping position brings the man's 
knapsack on a level with his helmet, thus forming 
some protection against shrapnel and shell-splinters. 

At the back of the German trenches, shelters are 
dug for non-commissioned officers and for the com- 
mander of the unit. The latter 's shelter is connected 
with the communication trench; the others are not. 
If one adds that the bank, or, rather, the earth that is 
210 



FACING DEATH IN THE TRENCHES 




Reinforced Trenches. 

Upper view: Details of roofs, loop-holes, and the form of the excavations. 
Lower left-hand view: Vertical section of trenches and shelters. Lower 
right-hand view: A plan and section of trenches and rest-room. 



dug from the trenches and spread out in front, extends 
for five or six yards, and is covered with grass, or 
appropriate vegetation, it will be recognized that the 

211 



FACING DEATH IN THE TRENCHES 

works concealing the German lines can be seen only 
when a near approach is made to them. 

As to reinforced trenches, the drawings show 
clearly their conception and arrangement. .They are 
proof against ordinary bullets and shrapnel. Only 
percussion-shells are able to destroy them and to 
decimate their defenders. The interior details of the 
trenches vary according to the ingenuity and spare 
time of the occupants and the nature of the ground. 

FRENCH STUDY OF GERMAN METHODS 

The whole system, that of the rest-rooms more 
especially, is designed to give the men the maximum of 
comfort and security. Doors and wooden shutters 
wrenched from deserted houses are used for covers, or 
else turf-covered branches. 

Ever since the outbreak of the war, the French troops 
in Lorraine, after severe experiences, realized rapidly 
the advantages of the German trenches, and began to 
study those they had taken gloriously. Officers, non- 
commissioned officers, and men of the Engineers were 
straightway detached in every unit to teach the 
infantry how to construct similar shelters. The 
education was quick, and very soon they had completed 
the work necessary for the protection of all. The 
tools of the enemy "casualties," the spades and picks 
left behind in deserted villages, were all gladly piled 
on to the French soldiers' knapsacks, to be carried will- 
ingly by the very men who used to grumble at being 
loaded with even the smallest regulation tool. As soon as 
night had set in on the occasion of a lull in the fighting, 
the digging of the trenches was begun. Sometimes, in 
212 



FACING DEATH IN THE TRENCHES 

the darkness, the men of each fighting nation — less 
than 500 yards away from their enemy — would hear 
the noise of the workers of the foe : the sounds of picks 
and axes; the officers' words of encouragement; and 
tacitly they would agree to an armistice during which 
to dig shelters from which, in the morning, they would 
dash out, to fight once more. 

'' COMFORTS OF HOME" 

Commodious, indeed, are some of the present trench 
barracks, if we may believe the letters from the front. 
One French soldier writes: 

''In really up-to-date entrenchments you may find 
kitchens, dining-rooms, bedrooms, and even stables. 
One regiment has first class cow-sheds. One day a 
whimsical 'piou-piou,' finding a cow wandering about 
in the danger zone, had the bright idea of finding 
shelter for it in the trenches. The example was quickly 
followed, and at this moment the — th Infantry possess 
an underground farm, in which fat kine, well cared 
for, give such quantities of milk that regular distribu- 
tions of butter are being made — and very good butter, 
too." 

But this is not all. An ofiicer writes home a tale of 
yet another one of the comforts of home added to the 
equipment of the trenches: 

"We are clean people here. Thanks to the ingenuity 

of , we are able to take a warm bath every day 

from ten to twelve. We caU this teasing the 
'bosches,' for this bathing-establishment of the 
latest type is fitted up — would you believe it? — in 
the trenches!'* 

213 



FACING DEATH IN THE TRENCHES 

BRITISH REFUGES IN NORTHERN FRANCE 

Describing trenches occupied by the British in their 
protracted ^'siege-warfare" in Northern France along 
and to the north of the^Aisne Valley, a British officer 
wrote: ''In the firing-line the men sleep and obtain 
shelter in the dugout-s they have hollowed or 'under- 
cut' in the side of the trenches. These refuges are 
slightly raised above the bottom of the trench, so as 
to remain dry in wet weather. The floor of the trench 
is also sloped for purposes of draining. Some trenches 
are provided with head-cover, and others with overhead 
cover, the latter, of course, giving protection from the 
weather as well as from shrapnel balls and spUnters of 
shells. ... At all points subject to sheU-fire access 
to the firing-line from behind is provided by com- 
munication-trenches. These are now so good that it 
is possible to cross in safety the fire-swept zone to the 
advanced trenches from the billets in villages, the 
bivouacs in quarries, or the other places where the 
headquarters of units happen to be." 

"picnicking" IN THE OPEN AIR 

A cavalry subaltern gave the following account of 
life in the trenches: "Picnicking in the open air, day 
and night (you never see a roof now), is the only real 
method of existence. There are loads of straw to 
bed down on, and everyone sleeps Hke a log, in turn, 
even with shrapnel bursting within fifty yards." 

RAVAGES OF ARTILLERY FIRE 

One English officer described the ravages of modern 
artillery fire, not only upon all men, animals and 
214 



FACING DEATH IN THE TRENCHES 

buildings within its zone, but upon the very face of 
nature itself: "In the trenches crouch lines of men, 
in brown or gray or blue, coated with mud, unshaven, 
hollow-eyed with the continual strain." 

"The fighting is now taking place over ground where 
both sides have for weeks past been excavating in all 
directions," said another letter from the front, "until 
it has become a perfect labyrinth. A trench runs 
straight for a considerable distance, then it suddenly 
forks in three or four directions. One branch merely 
leads into a ditch full of water, used in drier weather 
as a means of communication; another ends abruptl}^ 
in a cul-de-sac, probably an abandoned sap-head; the 
third winds on, leading into galleries and passages 
further forward. 

"Sometimes where new ground is broken the spade 
turns up the long-buried dead, ghastly relics of former 
fights, and on all sides the surface of the earth is 
ploughed and furrowed by fragments of shell and bombs 
and distorted by mines. Seen from a distance, this 
apparent^ confused mass of passages, crossing and 
recrossing one another, resembles an irregular grid- 
iron. 

"The life led by the infantry on both sides at close 
quarters is a strange, cramped existence, with death 
always near, either by means of some missile from above 
or some mine explosion from beneath — a life which has 
one dull, monotonous background of mud and water. 
Even when there is but little fighting the troops are 
kept hard at work strengthening the existing defenses, 
constructing others, and improvising the shelter impera- 
tive in such weather." 

215 



FACING DEATH IN THE TRENCHES 

THE COMMON ENEMY, THE WEATHER 

But it is not the guns or cannon of the enemy that 
affect the spirits of the soldiers. It is the weather. A 
week of alternate rain and snow, when the ill-drained 
dugouts are half-filled with a freezing viscid mud; 
when, day after day, the feet are numbed by the frost 
until all sensation in them is deadened; when the 
coarse, scanty ration is refused by the tortured stomach 
— ^then it is that the spirits of the stoutest falter. Let 
the enemy attack as he will, and he must fail. It is 
only in fighting that the men find an outlet for their 
rancor. 

More than thirty years ago a well-known German 
general declared that a book on ''Seasonal Tactics" 
might as properly be written as those on the tactics of 
weapons, and of geographical conditions; and in a 
recent issue of the Deutsche Revue an unsigned 
article by a veteran of the Franco-Prussian war re- 
counts the difficulties that arise when the Frost King 
holds sway. "To begin with, the precious hours of 
daylight are much fewer, and even these may be 
shortened by overcast skies and heavy fogs. Soft 
snow and mud seriously impede marching and at times 
it is impossible to take cross-country cuts, even single 
horsemen having great difficulty in crossing the frozen 
ridges of plowed fields or stubble. Moreover, even 
regular highways may become so slippery that they 
endanger both man and horse, and in hilly country 
such conditions make it necessary to haul heavy artil- 
lery up steep ascents by man-power. Cold head- winds 
also greatly impede progress. 

''The necessity of bringing the troops under cover 
216 






Sinking of a Torpedoed Battleship. 
As the British vessel "Aboukir" was sinking after being torpedoed by 
a German submarine, one of the sailors described the last moment as 
follows: "The captain sings out an order just like on any ordinary occa- 
sion, 'If any man wishes to leave the side of the ship he can do so, every 
man for himself,' then we gave a cheer and in we went." 



FACING DEATH IN THE TRENCHES 

enforces long marches at the end of the day's work, and 
again at its beginning, and therefore makes extra 
demands on energy. . . . The early dark hinders the 
offense from carrying out its plans completely and from 
utilizing any advantage won by following it up ener- 
getically. Night battles become frequent. The de- 
fense seeks to regain what it has lost by day, the offense 
to make use of the long nights to win what it could not 
achieve in the daytime. Then, too, the need of getting 
warmed-up makes the troops more enterprising. '^ 

All sorts of constructive work — fortification building, 
the erection of stations for telegraphs, telephones and 
wireless, etc. — is naturally much more difficult in 
frozen ground. General von der Goltz of the German 
Army is said to have recommended many years ago 
that in view of possible winter campaigns provision 
should be made in quantity of warm winter clothing, 
materials for the building of barracks, making double 
tents, etc. Another important preventive of suffering 
and the consequent diminished efficiency is to provide 
plenty of good hot food for the men. 

WHY COOKS WEAR IRON CROSSES 

"There isn't anything heroic about cooks," wrote 
Herbert Corey in the New York Globe, ''and when 
things go wrong one either apprehends a cook as 
chasing a waiter with a bread-knife or giving way to 
tears." Yet the German army contains many a cook 
whose expansive apron is decorated with the Iron 
Cross. ''And the Iron Cross," Mr. Corey reminds 
us, "is conferred for one thing only — for 100 per cent 
courage." 

217 



FACING DEATH IN THE TRENCHES 

" They've earned it/ said the man who had seen 
them. 'They are the bravest men in the Kaiser's 
four millions. I've seen generals salute greasy, 
paunchy, sour-looking army cooks.' 

"The cook's job is to feed the men of his company. 
Each German company is followed, or preceded, by a 
field-kitchen on wheels. Sometimes the fires are kept 
going while the device trundles along. The cook stands 
on the foot-board and thumps his bread. He is always 
the first man up in the morning and the last to sleep 
at night. 

"When that company goes into the trenches the 
cook staj^s behind. There is no place for a field- 
kitchen in a four-foot trench. But these men in the 
trench must be fed. The Teuton insists that all 
soldiers must be fed— but especially the men in the 
trench. The others may go hungry, but these must 
have tight belts. Upon their staying power may depend 
the safety of an army. 

"So, as the company can not go to the cook, the 
cook goes to the company. When meal-hour comes 
he puts a yoke on his shoulders and a cook's cap on 
his head and, warning the second cook as to what will 
happen if he lets the fires go out, puts a bucketful of 
hot veal stew on either end of the yoke and goes to his 
men. Maybe the trench is under fire. No matter. 
His men are in that trench and must be fed. 

"Sometimes the second cook gets his step right here. 
Sometimes the apprentice cook — the dish-washer — 
is summoned to pick up the cook's j^oke and refill the 
spilled buckets and tramp steadily forward to the line. 
Sometimes the supply of assistant cooks, even, runs 
218 



FACING DEATH IN THE TRENCHES 

short. But the men in the trenches always get their 
food. 

" 'That's why so many cooks in the German Army 
have Iron Crosses danghng from their breasts/ said 
the man who knows. ' No braver men ever Hved. The 
man in the trench can duck his head and hght his 
pipe and be relatively safe. No fat cook yoked to two 
buckets of veal stew ever can be safe as he marches 
down the trench.' " 

'^ PUTTING ONE OVEr" ON THE RUSSIANS 

Granville Fortescue, who visited the Russian trenches 
in Poland, related in the Illustrated London News a 
story of how the Germans, to use a slang phrase, ''put 
one over" on the too-confiding Russians. "This 
happened," he wrote, "at a portion of the line where 
the positions ran so close that the men could com- 
municate by shouting. It was around Christmas, and 
the Germans invited the Russians to come over for a 
hot cup of new coffee just received from home. The 
Russians replied to this invitation, shouting: 'Come 
over and try our tea. It's a special gift from the 
Czar.' 

"The Germans then put up the white flag, and said 
that they would send over fifteen men to try the tea 
if the Russians would send over the same number to 
sample their coffee. The plan was carried out. When 
the fifteen Germans appeared in the Russian trench, 
the hosts remarked to one another that if these were a 
sample the enemy would not hold out long. They were 
a sick-looking lot. Suddenly the Germans pulled down 
their white flag and commenced firing. Then the 

219 



FACING DEATH IN THE TRENCHES 

Russians found that they had exchanged fifteen good 
soldiers for fifteen tj^phus patients. 

''It is easy to beheve that the Russian soldier could 
be imposed upon in this way. Although extreme^ 
courageous, he is very simple-minded with it all, and 
certainly trusting. He is a splendid physical specimen. 
In the trail of trench warfare this is the great desidera- 
tum. Then, the Russians of the type that are drafted 
into the army have all their life been accustomed to 
privation and exposure. For this reason they are the 
only troops that I have seen who can stick six days and 
nights on end in a trench, under constant small arms 
and shell fire, with the temperature below zero, and 
after a daj-'s rest be as good as ever. The Russians 
never grumble." 



220 



CHAPTER XX 
A VIVID PICTURE OE WAR 

THE BATTLE OF NEUVE CHAPELLE — ^A SURPRISE 

PREPARED "hell BROKE LOOSE " — ^A HORRIBLE 

THIRTY-FIVE MINUTES TRENCHES FILLED AVITH 

DEAD HOARSE SHOUTS AND THE GROANS OP THE 

WOUNDED INDESCRIBABLE MASS OF RUINS 

"smeared WITH DUST AND BLOOD." 

ONE OE the most vivid word-pictures of what war 
means in all its horror was told by an eye-witness of 
the ba,ttle of Neuve Chapelle in which the British 
soldiers dislodged the Germans from an important 
position. He said: 

''The dawn, which broke reluctantly through a 
veil of clouds on the morning of Wednesday, March 10, 
1915, seemed as any other to the Geraians behind the 
white and blue sandbags in their long line of trenches 
curving in a hemi cycle about the battered village of 
Neuve Chapelle. For five months they had remained 
undisputed masters of the positions they had here 
wrested from the British in October. Ensconced in 
their comfortably-arranged trenches with but a thin 
outpost in their fire trenches, they had watched day 
succeed day and night succeed night without the least 
variation from the monotonj^ of trench warfare, the 
intermittent bark of the machine guns — rat-tat-tat- 
tat-tat — and the perpetual rattle of rifle fire, with here 
and there a bomb, and now and then an exploded mine. 

221 



A VIVID PICTURE OF WAR 

A SURPRISE PREPARED 

"For weeks past the German airmen had grown 
strangely shy. On this Wednesday morning none were 
aloft to spy out the strange doings which as dawn broke 
might have been descried on the desolate roads 
behind the British lines. 

''From ten o'clock of the preceding evening endless 
files of men marched silently down the roads leading 
towards the German positions through Laventie and 
Richebourg St. Vaast, poor shattered villages of the 
dead where months of incessant bombardment have 
driven away the last inhabitants and left roofless 
houses and rent roadways. . . . 

''Two days before, a quiet room, where Nelson's 
Prayer stands on the mantel-shelf, saw the ripening of 
the plans that sent these sturdy sons of Britain's four 
kingdoms marching all through the night. Sir John 
French met the army corps commanders and unfolded 
to them his plans for the offensive of the British Army 
against the German line at Neuve Chapelle. 

"The onslaught was to be a surprise. That was its 
essence. The Germans were to be battered with 
artiUerj^, then rushed before they recovered their wits. 
We had thirty-six clear hours before us. Thus long, it 
was reckoned (with complete accuracy as afterwards 
appeared), must elapse before the Germans, whose line 
before us had been weakened, could rush up reinforce- 
ments. To ensure the enemy's being pinned down right 
and left of the 'great push,' an attack was to be de- 
livered north and south of the main thrust simulta- 
neously with the assault on Neuve Chapelle." 

After describing the impatience of the British 
222 



A VIVID PICTURE OF WAR 

soldiers as they awaited the signal to open the attack, 
and the actual beginning of the engagement, the narra- 
tor continues: 



HELL BROKE LOOSE 

''Then hell broke loose. With a mighty, hideous, 
screeching burst of noise, hundreds of guns spoke. The 
men in the front 
trenches were deaf- 
ened by the sharp 
reports of the 
field-guns spitting 
out their shells at 
close range to cut 
through the Ger- 
mans' barbed wire 
entanglements. In 
some cases the 
trajectory of these 
vicious missiles 
was so flat that 
they passed only a 
few feet above the 
British trenches. 

''The din was 
continuous. An officer who had the curious idea 
of putting his ear to the ground said it was as 
though the earth were being smitten great blows 
with a Titan's hammer. After the first few shells 
had plunged screaming amid clouds of earth and 
dust into the German trenches, a dense pall of smoke 
hung over the German lines. The sickening fumes of 

223 




"There Is Nothing to Report." 



A VIVID PICTURE OF WAR 

lyddite blew back into the British trenches. In some 
places the troops were smothered in earth and dust 
or even spattered with blood from the hideous frag- 
ments of human bodies that went hurtling through the 
air. At one point the upper half of a German officer, 
his cap crammed on his head, was blown into one of 
our trenches. 

A HORRIBLE THIRTY-FIVE MINUTES 

^' Words will never convey any adequate idea of 
the horror of those five and thirty minutes. When 
the hands of officers' watches pointed to five minutes 
past eight, whistles resounded along the British lines. 
At the same moment the shells began to burst farther 
ahead, for, by previous arrangement, the gunners, 
lengthening their fuses, were ' lifting ' on to the village 
of Neuve Chapelle so as to leave the road open for our 
infantry to rush in and finish what the guns had begun. 

''The shells were now falling thick among the houses 
of Neuve Chapelle, a confused mass of buildings seen 
reddish through the pillars of smoke and flying earth 
and dust. At the sound of the whistle— alas for the 
bugle, once the herald of victory, now banished from 
the fray! — our men scrambled out of the trenches and 
hurried higgledy-piggledy into the open. Their officers 
were in front. Many, wearing overcoats and carrying 
rifles with fixed bayonets, closely resembled their men. 

TRENCHES FILLED WITH DEAD 

"It was from the center of our attacking hne that 
the assault was pressed home soonest. The guns had 
done their work well. The trenches were blown to 
224 



A VIVID PICTURE OF WAR 

irrecognizable pits dotted with dead. The barbed 
wire had been cut like so much twine. Starting from 
the Rue Tilleloy the Lincolns and the Berkshires 
were off the mark first, with orders to swerve to right 
and left respectively as soon as they had captured the 
first line of trenches, in order to let the Royal Irish 
PJfles and the Rifle Brigade through to the village. 
The Germans left alive in the trenches, half demented 
with fright, surrounded by a welter of dead and dying 
men, mostly surrendered. The Berkshires were opposed 
with the utmost gallantry by two German officers 
who had remained alone in a trench serving a machine 
gun. But the lads from Berkshire made their way into 
that trench and bayoneted the Germans where they 
stood, fighting to the last. The Lincolns, agaiust 
desperate resistance, eventually occupied their section 
of the trench and then waited for the Irishmen and the 
Rifle Brigade to come and take the village ahead of 
them. Meanwhile the second thirty-ninth Garh walls 
on the right had taken their trenches with a rush and 
were away towards the village and the Biez Wood. 

HOARSE SHOUTS AND THE GROANS OF THE WOUNDED 

'^Things had moved so fast that by the time the 
troops were ready to advance against the village the 
artillery had not finished its work. So, while the 
Lincolns and the Berks assembled the prisoners who 
were trooping out of the trenches in all directions, the 
infantry on whom devolved the honor of capturing the 
village, waited. One saw them standing out in the 
open, laughing and cracking jokes amid the terrific 
din made by the huge howitzer shells screeching over- 

in 225 



A VIVID PICTURE OF WAR 

head and bursting in the village, the rattle of machine 
guns all along the line, and the popping of rifles. Over 
to the right where the Garh walls had been working 
with the bayonet, men were shouting hoarsely and 
wounded were groaning as the stretcher-bearers, all 
heedless of bullets, moved swiftly/ to and fro over the 
shell-torn ground. 

''There was bloody work in the village of Neuve 
Chapelle. The capture of a place at the bayonet 
point is generally a grim business, in which instant, 
unconditional surrender is the only means by which 
bloodshed, a deal of bloodshed, can be prevented. 
If there is individual resistance here and there the 
attacking troops cannot discriminate. They must 
go through, slaying as they go such as oppose them 
(the Germans have a monopoly of the finishing-off 
of wounded men), otherwise the enemy's resistance 
would not be broken, and the assailants would be sniped 
and enfiladed from hastily prepared strongholds at 
half a dozen different points. 

INDESCRIBABLE MASS OF RUINS 

"The village was a sight that the men say they will 
never forget. It looked as if an earthquake had struck 
it. The published photographs do not give any idea 
of the indescribable mass of ruins to which our guns 
reduced it. The chaos is so utter that the very line 
of the streets is all but obliterated. 

''It was indeed a scene of desolation into which the 
Rifle Brigade — the first regiment to enter the viUage, 
I beheve — traced headlong. Of the church only the 
bare shell remained, the interior lost to view beneath 
226 



A VIVID PICTURE OF WAR 

a gigantic mound of debris. The little churchyard 
was devastated, the very dead plucked from their 
graves, broken coffins and ancient bones scattered 
about amid the fresher dead, the slain of that morning — 
grey green forms asprawl athwart the tombs. Of all 
that once fair village but two things remained intact — 
two great crucifixes reared aloft, one in the churchyard, 
the other over against the chateau. From the cross 
that is the emblem of our faith the figure of Christ, 
yet intact though all pitted with bullet marks, looked 
down in mute agony on the slain in the village. 

''smeared with dust and blood" 

*' The din and confusion were indescribable. Through 
the thick pall of shell smoke Germans were seen on all 
sides, some emerging half dazed from cellars and dug- 
outs, their hands above their heads, others dodging 
round the shattered houses, others firing from the 
windows, from behind carts, even from behind the 
overturned tombstones. Machine guns were firing 
from the houses on the outskirts, rapping out their 
nerve-racking note above the noise of the rifles. 

''Just outside the village there was a scene of tre- 
mendous enthusiasm. The Rifle Brigade, smeared 
with dust and blood, fell in with the Third Gurkhas 
with whom they had been brigaded in India. The 
little brown men were dirty but radiant. Kukri in 
hand they had very thoroughly gone through some 
houses at the cross-roads on the Rue du Bois and 
silenced a party of Germans who were making them- 
selves a nuisance there with some machine guns. 
Riflemen and Gurkhas cheered themselves hoarse." 

227 



CHAPTER XXI 

HARROWING SCENES ALONG THE BATTLE 

LINES 

DRIVING BACK THE GERMANS UNDER FIRE ON 

THE FIRING LINE ^.IMONG MANGLED HORSES AND 

MEN GERMAN LOSSES FRIGHTFUL DIXMUDE A 

PLACE OF DEATH AND HORROR. 

SOME IDEx\ of the ruin wrought day after day as 
the battle raged in Flanders may be gained from the 
occasional reports of war correspondents w^ho shared 
the fortunes of battle. 

'^The battle rages along the Yser with frightful 
destruction of life," wrote a correspondent of the 
London Daily News in October. "Air engines, sea 
engines, and land engines death-sweep this desolate 
country, vertically, horizontally, and transversely. 
Through it the frail little hiunan engines crawl and 
dig, walk and run, skirmishing, charging, and blunder- 
ing in little individual fights and tussles, tired and 
puzzled, ordered here and there, sleeping where they 
can, never washing, and dying unnoticed. A friend 
may find himself firing on a friendly force, and few 
are to blame. 

"Thursday the Germans were driven back over the 
Yser; Friday they secured a footing again, and Saturda}^ 
they were again hurled back. Now a bridge blown 
up by one side is repaired by the other; it is again 
228 



H A il R O W I N G S C E N E S 



blown up by the first, or left as a death trap till the 
enemy is actually crossing. 

''Actions by armored trains, some of them the 
most reckless adventures, are attempted daily. Each 
day accumulates an unwritten record of individual 
daring feats, accepted as part of the dail}" work. Day 
by day our men 
push out on 
these dangerous 
explorations, at- 
tacked by shell 
fire, in danger of 
cross-fire, dyna- 
mite, and am- 
buscades, bring- 
ing a priceless 
support to the 
threatened lines. 
As the armored 
train approaches 
the river under 
shell fire the car 
cracks with the 

constant thunder of guns aboard. It is amazing to 
see the angle at which the guns can be swung. 

''And overhead the airmen are busy venturing 
through fog and puffs of exploding shells to get one 
small fact of information. We used to regard the 
looping of the loop of the Germans overhead as a hare- 
brained piece of impudent defiance to our infantry fire. 
Now we know it means early trouble for the infantry. 

"Besides us, as we crawl up snufiing the lines like 

229 




These Always SuRvroa. 



HARROWING SCENES 



dogs on a scent, grim train-loads of wounded wait 
soundlessly in the sidings. Further up the line ambu- 
lances are coming slowly back. The bullets of machine 
guns begin to rattle on our armored coats. Shells 
we learned to disregard, but the machine gun is the 
master in this war. 

"Now we near the river at a flat country farm. 
The territory is scarred with trenches, and it is impos- 
sible to say at first who is in them, so incidental and 
separate are the fortunes of this riverside battle. The 
Germans are on our bank enfilading the lines of the 
Allies' trenches. We creep up and the Germans come 
into sight out of the trenches, rush to the bank, and 
are scattered and mashed. The Allies follow with a 
fierce bayonet charge. 

'^The Germans do not wait. They rush to the 
bridges and are swept away by the deadliest destroyer 
of all, the machine gun. The bridge is blown up, but 
who can say by whom? Quicldy the train runs back. 

'^ 'A brisk day,' remarks the correspondent. 'Not 
so bad,' replies the officer. So the days pass." 

ON THE FIRING LINE 

Another correspondent who, accompanied by a son 
of the Belgian War Minister, M. de Broqueville, 
made a tour of the battleground in the Dixmude 
district wrote: 

'^No pen could do justice to the grandeur and horror 
of the scene. As far as the eye could reach nothing 
could be seen but burning villages and bursting shells. 

"Arriving at the firing line, a terrible scene presented 
itself. The shell fire from the German batteries was 
230 



HAEROWING SCENES 



so terrific that Belgian soldiers and French marines 
were continually being blown out of their dugouts and 
sent scattering to cover. Elsewhere, also, little groups 
of peasants were forced to flee because their cellars 
began to fall in. These unfortunates had to make their 
way as best they could on foot to the rear. They were 
frightened to death by the bursting shells, and the 
sight of crying children among them was most pa- 
thetic. 

'^Dixmude was the objective of the German attack, 
and shells were bursting all over it, crashing among the 
roofs and blowing whole streets to pieces. From a 
distance of three miles we could hear them crashing 
down, but the town itself was invisible, except for the 
flames and the smoke and clouds rising above it. The 
Belgians had only a few field batteries, so that the 
enemy's howitzers simply dominated the field, and the 
infantry trenches around the town had to rely upon 
their own unaided efforts. 

AMONG MANGLED HORSES AND MEN 

"Our progress along the road was suddenly stopped 
by one of the most horrible sights I have ever seen. 
A heavy howitzer shell had fallen and burst right in 
the midst of a Belgian battery which was making its 
way to the front, causing terrible destruction. The 
mangled horses and men among the debris presented a 
shocking spectacle. 

^ "Eventually, we got into Dixmude itself, and 
every time a shell came crashing among the roofs we 
thought our end had come. The Hotel de Ville (town 
hall) was a sad sight. The roof was completely riddled 

231 



HARROWING SCENES 



by shell, while inside was a scene of chaos. It was piled 
with loaves of bread, bicycles, and dead soldiers. 

"The battle redoubled in fury, and by seven o'clock 
in the evening Dixmude was a furnace, presenting a 
scene of terrible grandeur. The horizon was red 
with burning homes. 

"Our return journey was a melancholy one, owing 
to the constant trains of wounded that were passing." 

GERMAN LOSSES FRIGHTFUL 

''The German losses are frightful" wrote another 
correspondent. ''Three meadows near Ostend are 
heaped with dead. The wounded are now installed 
in private houses in Bruges, where large wooden sheds 
are being rushed up to receive additional injured. 
Thirty-seven farm wagons containing wounded, dying, 
and dead passed in one hour near Middelkerke." 

DIXMUDE A PLACE OF DEATH AND HORROR 

From Furnes, Belgium, members of the staff of the 
English hospital traveled to Dixmude to search for 
wounded men on the firing line. Philip Gibbs, of the 
London Daily Chronicle, who traveled with them in 
reporting his experiences, said: 

"I was in one of the am^bulances, and Mr. Gleeson 
sat behind me in the narrow space between the 
stretchers. Over his shoulder he talked in a quiet 
voice of the job that lay before us. I was glad of that 
quiet voice, so placid in its courage. We went forward 
at what seemed to me a crawl, though I think it was a 
fair pace, sheUs bursting around us now on all sides, 
while shrapnel bullets sprayed the earth about us. 



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It appeared to me an odd thing that we were still alive. 
Then we came into Dixmude. 

"When I saw it for the first and last time it was a 
place of death and horror. The streets through which 
we passed were utterly deserted and wrecked from 
end to end, as though by an earthquake. Incessant 
explosions of shell fire crashed down upon the walls 
which still stood. Great gashes opened in the walls, 
which then toppled and fell. A roof came tumbling 
down with an appalling clatter. Like a house of cards 
blown by a puff of wind, a little shop suddenly collapsed 
into a mass of ruins. Here and there, further into the 
town, we saw living figures. They ran swiftly for a 
moment and then disappeared into dark caverns under 
toppling porticoes. They were Belgian soldiers. . . . 

''W^ stood on some steps, looking down into that 
cellar. It was a dark hole, illumined dimly by a 
lantern, I think. I caught sight of a little heap of 
huddled bodies. Two soldiers, still unwounded, dragged 
three of them out and handed them up to us. The 
work of getting those three men into the first ambulance 
seemed to us interminable; it was really no more than 
fifteen or twenty minutes. 

''I had lost consciousness of myself. Something 
outside myself, as it seemed, was saying that there was 
no way of escape; that it was monstrous to suppose 
that all these bursting shells would not smash the 
ambulance to bits and finish the agony of the wounded, 
and that death was very hideous. I remember thinking 
also how ridiculous it was for men to kill one another 
Vlike this and to make such hells on earth." 



233 



CHAPTER XXII 

WHAT THE MEN IN THE TRENCHES WRITE 

HOME 

SOBERING REALITIES OF BATTLE "WAR IS TER- 
RIBLE" THE COMMON ENEMY, DEATH "a WASTE- 
FUL war" *'SAME PAIR OF BLUE EYES" FIGHTING 

WITHOUT HATE. 

LIFE AT the front is not all marching and fighting by 
any means: there are long days and nights of waiting 
in which though it be 

"Theirs not to reason why" 

the soldiers have abundant time to reflect upon the 
grim fatality of war and the hideousness of the carnage. 
They are continually facing death, and though many of 
them, perhaps most of them, become inured to the 
sights of human slaughter, others cannot fail to be 
impressed by the stark, white faces of the fallen — friends 
and foes alike. Sights more horrible than perhaps 
they could have imagined are burned into their minds, 
never to be effaced. 

Naturally some of their reflections find expression 
in the letters home, when the soldier is more or less 
off guard. There we get an ''inside view" of the war 
which does much to offset the ruthlessness of rulers 
and restore one's faith in the essential humanity of 
men. 
234 



WHAT THE MEN WRITE HOME 



WAR IS TERRIBLE 

The following letter, which i^efers to the fighting along 
the Aisne, was found on a German officer of the Seventh 
Reserve Corp: 

''Cerny, South of Laon, Sept. 14, 1914. 

"My dear Parents: Our corps has the task of 
holding the heights 
south of Cerny in 
all circumstances 
until the four- 
teenth corps on 
our left flank can 
grip the enemy's 
flank. On our 
right are other 
corps. We are 
fighting with the 
English Guards, 
Highlanders, and 
Zouaves. The 
losses on both 

sides have been enormous. For the most part this is 
due to the too brilliant French artillery. 

"The English are marvelously trained in making 
use of ground. One never sees them, and one is 
constantly under fire. The French airmen perform 
wonderful feats. We cannot get rid of them. As 
soon as an airman has flown over us, ten minutes 
later we get their shrapnel fire in our positions. We 
have little artillery in our corps; without it we cannot 
get forward. 

235 




The Mother. 



WHAT THE MEN WRITE HOME 

^^ Three days ago our division took possession of these 
heights and dug itself in. Two days ago, early in the 
morning, we were attacked bj^ an immensely superior 
English force, one brigade and two battalions, and 
were turned out of our positions. The fellows took 
five guns from us. It was a tremendous hand-to-hand 
fight. 

"How I escaped myself I am not clear. I then had 
to bring up supports on foot. My horse was wounded, 
and the others were too far in the rear. Then came up 
theguardsjager battalion, fourth jager, sixth regiment, 
reserve regiment thirteen, and landwehr regiments 
thirteen and sixteen, and with the help of the artiUery 
we drove the fellows out of the position again. Our 
machine guns did excellent work; the English fell in 
heaps. 

"In our battalion three Iron Crosses have been 

given, one to CO., one to Captain , and one to 

Surgeon . [Names probably deleted.] Let us 

hope that we shaU be the lucky ones next time. 

"During the first two days of the battle I had only 
one piece of bread and no water. I spent the night in 
the rain without my overcoat. The rest of my kit was 
on the horses which had been left behind with the 
baggage and which cannot come up into the battle 
because as soon as you put your nose up from behind 
cover the bullets whistle. 

"War is terrible. We are all hoping that a decisive 
battle will end the war, as our troops already have got 
round Paris. If we beat the English the French resist- 
ance will soon be broken. Russia will be very quickly 
dealt with; of this there is no doubt. 
236 



WHAT THE MEN WRITE HOME 

"Yesterday evening, about six, in the valley in which 
our reserves stood there was such a terrible cannonade 
that we saw nothing of the sky but a cloud of smoke. 
We had few casualties." 

THE COMMON ENEMY, DEATH 

How foe helps foe when the last grim hour comes is 
revealed in the letter which a French cavalry officer 
sent to his fiancee in Paris: 

"There are two other men lying near me, and I do 
not think there is much hope for them either. One is 
an officer of a Scottish regiment and the other a private 
in the Uhlans. They were struck down after me, and 
when I came to myself, I found them bending over me, 
rendering first aid. 

'^The Britisher was pouring water down my throat 
from his flask, while the German was endeavoring to 
stanch my wound with an antiseptic preparation 
served out to them by their medical corps. The High- 
lander had one of his legs shattered, and the German 
had several pieces of shrapnel buried in his side. 

"In spite of their own sufferings they were trying 
to help me, and when I was fully conscious again the 
German gave us a morphia injection and took one 
himself. His medical corps had also provided him with 
the injection and the needle, together with printed 
instructions for its use. 

"After the injection, feeling wonderfully at ease, 
we spoke of the lives we had Hved before the war. We 
all spoke English, and we talked of the women we had 
left at home. Both the German and the Britisher 
had only been married a year. . . . 

237 



WHAT THE MEN WRITE HOME 

''I wonder, and I supposed the others did, why we 
had fought each other at all. I looked at the*^ High- 
lander, who was falling to sleep, exhausted, and in spite 
of his drawn face and mud-stained uniform, he looked 
the embodiment of freedom. Then I thought of the 
Tri-color of France, and all that France had done for 
liberty. Then I watched the German, who had ceased 
to speak. He had taken a prayer book from his 
knapsack and was trying to read a service for soldiers 
wounded in battle." 

''same pair of blue eyes" 

Sergeant Gabriel David, of the French infantry, who 
saw seven months of continuous service in the trenches 
of the Argonne Forest, described the odd effect of 
peeping over the top of a trench for weeks into the 
same pair of German blue eyes. 

"I don't know who this man was or what he might 
have been," he said, "but wherever I go I can yet see 
those sad-looking eyes. He and I gazed at each other 
for three weeks in one stretch; his watch seemed to 
always be the same as mine. We came to respect each 
other. I am sure that I would always know those blue 
eyes, and I would like to meet that man when the war 
has ended." 

FIGHTING WITHOUT HATE 

There is yet to appear an authentic letter from a 
private or officer on either side that contains a tithe of 
the virulence and bitterness shown in the statements 
and writings of many non-combatants. 

"One wonders," runs a letter of a British officer, 
238 



WHAT THE MEN WRITE HOME 

"when one sees a German face to face, is this really one 
of those devils who wrought such devastation — for 
devastation they have surely wrought. You can 
hardly believe it, for he seems much the same as other 
soldiers. I can assure you that out here there is none 
of that insensate hatred that one hears about. 

"Just to give you some idea of what I mean, the 
other night four German snipers were shot on our wire. 
The next night our men went out and brought one in 
who was near and get-at-able and buried him. They 
did it with just the same reverence and sadness as 
they do to our own dear fellows. I went to look at the 
grave the next morning, and one of the most uncouth- 
looking men in my company had placed a cross at the 
head of the grave, and had written on it: 

" 'Here lies a German, 
We don't know his name. 
For he died bravely fighting 
For his Fatherland.* 

"And under that, 'got mitt uns' (sic), that being 
the highest effort of all the men at German. Not bad 
for a bloodthirsty Briton, eh? Really that shows the 
spirit." 



239 



CHAPTER XXIII 
BOMBARDING UNDEFENDED CITIES 

THE GERMAN RAID ON THE ENGLISH COAST 

MRS. KAUFraiAN's DESCRIPTION CANNONADING AT 

"V^TIITBY FREAKISH EFFECT OF SHELLS FLIGHT OF 

SCHOOL CHILDREN. 

THE NINTH Hague Convention of 1907, to which 
both Germany and Great Britain gave their assent 
upon identical conditions, expressly forbids ''the bom- 
bardment b}^ naval forces of undefended ports, towns, 
villages, dwelHngs or buildings," and by inference 
requires notice to be given previous to any such opera- 
tions. Neither of these stipulations was observed by 
the German naval raiders who on December 16, 1914, 
bombarded the historic English tow^ns of Hartlepool, 
Whitby and Scarborough. Appearing in the early 
morning, the Germans rained deadly shells upon these 
coast towns, none of which was of strategic importance, 
and only one protected by fortifications. The imme- 
diate result was the useless slaughter of many non- 
combatants — men and women and children, and the 
ruin of buildings, churches and historic monuments, 
including the ancient abbey of St. Hilda at Whitby. 

The raid on Scarborough was described by Ruth. 
Kauffman, the wife of the novehst, Reginald Wright 
Kauffinan, in an interesting communication. The 
240 



BOMBARDING UNDEFENDED CITIES 



Kauffmans had been living for several years just outside 
of Cloughton, a village near Scarborough. 

MRS. KAUFFMAn's DESCRIPTION 

''It's a very curious thing to watch a bombardment 
from your house. 

''Everybody knew the Kaiser would do it. But 
there was a little doubt about the date, and then some- 




Where the War Was Brought Home to England. 

how the spy-hunting sport took up general attention. 
When the Kaiser did send his card it was quite as 
much of a surprise as most Christmas cards— from a 
friend forgotten. 

"Eighteen people were killed in the morning 
between eight and eight-thirty o'clock in the streets 
and houses of Scarborough by German shrapnel, two 
hundred were wounded and more than two hundred 
houses were damaged or demolished. 

"From our windows we could not quite make out the 
■56 241 



BOMBARDING UNDEFENDED CITIES 

contours of the ruined castle, which is generally plainly 
visible. Our attention was called to the fact that 
there was "practicing" going on and we could at 8.07 
see quick flashes. That these flashes pointed directly 
at Scarborough we did not for a few moments compre- 
hend, then the fog slowly lifting, we saw a fog that 
was partly smoke. The castle grew into its place in 
the six miles distance. 

"It seemed for a moment that the eight-foot thick 
Norman waUs tottered, but no, whatever tottered was 
behind the keep. Curiously enough, we could barely 
hear the cannonading, for the wind was keen in the 
opposite direction, yet we could, as the minutes crept 
by and the air cleared, see distinctly the flashes from 
the boats and the flashes in the city. 

"After about fifteen minutes there was a cessation, 
or perhaps a hesitation, that lasted two minutes; then 
the flashes continued. Ten minutes more and the 
boats began to move again. One cruiser disappeared 
from sight, sailing south by east. 

CANNONADING AT WHITBY 

"The other two rushed like fast trains north again, 
close to our cliffs, and in another half hour we heard 
all too plainly the cannonading which had almost 
escaped our ears from Scarborough. We thought it 
was Robin Hood's Bay, as far north of us as Scarborough 
is south, but afterward we learned that the boats 
omitted this pretty red-roofed town and concentrated 
their remaining energy on Whitby, fifteen miles north; 
the wind blowing toward us brought us the vibrating 
boom. 
242 



Bombarding undefended cities 

''We drove to Scarborough. We had not gone one 
mile of the distance when we began to meet people 
coming in the opposite direction. A small white-faced 
boy in a milk cart that early every morning makes its 
Scarborough rounds showed us a piece of shell he had 
picked up, and said it had first struck a man a few 
yards from him and killed the man. A woman carrying 
a basket told us, with trembling lips, that men and 
women were lying about the streets dead. 

''We did not meet a deserted city when we entered. 
The streets were thronging. There was a Sunday hush 
over everything, without the accompanying Sunday 
clothes, but people moved about or stood at their door- 
ways. Many of the shop fronts were boarded up and 
shop windows were empty of display. The main street, 
a narrow passage-way that clambers up from the sea and 
points due west, was filled with a procession that slowly 
marched down one side and up the other. People 
hardly spoke. They made room automatically for a 
group of silent Boy Scouts, who carried an unconscious 
woman past us to the hospital. There was the insistent 
honk of a motor-car. As it pushed its way through, all 
that struck me about the car was the set face of the 
old man rising above improvised bandages about 
his neck, part of the price of the Kaiser's Christmas 
card. 

"The damage to property did not first reach our 
attention. But as we walked down the main street 
and then up it with the procession we saw that shops 
and houses all along had windows smashed next to 
windows unhurt. At first we thought the broken 
windows were from concussion; but apparently very 

243 



BOMBARDING UNDEFENDED CITIES 

few were so broken; there was not much concussion, 
but the shells, splintering as they exploded, had flown 
red hot in every direction. The smoke, we had seen, 
had come from fires quickly extinguished. 

FREAKISH EFFECTS OF SHELLS 

''We left the main business street and picked our way 
toward the foreshore and the South Cliff, the more 
fashionable part of the town as well as the school 
section. Here there was a great deal of havoc, and 
we had to climb over some of the debris. Roofs were 
half torn off and balancing in mid-air; shells had shot 
through chimneys and some chimneys tottered, while 
several had merely round holes through the brick 
work; mortar, brick and glass lay about the streetL=^; 
here a third-story room was bare to the view, the wail 
lifted as for a child's doll house and disclosing a single 
bedroom with shaving materials on the bureau stiii 
secure; there a drug-store front lay fallen into the 
street, and the iron railing about it was torn and twisted 
out of shape. 

"A man and a boy had just been carried away dead. 
All around small pieces of iron rail and ripped asphalt 
lay scattered. Iron bars were driven into the wood- 
work of houses. There were great gaps in walls and 
roofs. The attack had not spent itself on any one 
section of the city, but had scattered itself in different 
wards. The freaks of the shells were as inexpHcable 
as those of a great fire that destroys everything in a 
house except a piano and a mantelpiece with its bric-a- 
brac, or a flood that carries away a log cabin and leaves 
a rosebush unharmed and blooming. 
244 



BOMBARDING UNDEFENDED CITIES 

'^Silent pedestrians walked along and searched the 
ground for souvenirs, of which there were plenty. 
Sentries guarded houses and streets where it was 
dangerous to explore and park benches were used as 
barriers to the public. Ail the cabs were requisitioned 
to take away luggage and frightened inhabitants. 
During the shelling hundreds of women and children, 
breakfastless, their hair hanging, hatless and even 
penniless, except for their mere railway fares, had rushed 
to the station and taken tickets to the first safe town 
they could think of. There was no panic, these hatless, 
penniless w^omen all asserted, when they arrived in 
York and Leeds. 

FLIGHT OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 

'^A friend of mine hurried into Scarborough by 
motor to rescue her sister, who was a pupil at one of 
the boarding schools. But it appeared that v/hen the 
windows of the school began to crash the teachers 
hurried from prayers, ordered the pupils to gather 
hats and coats and sweet chocolate that happened to 
be on hand as a substitute for breakfast and made them 
run for a mile and a half, with shells exploding about 
them, through the streets to the nearest out-of-Scarbor- 
ough railway station. Mj friend, after unbelievable 
difficulties, finally found her sister in a private house 
of a village near by, the girl in tears and pleading not 
to be sent to London; she had been told that her 
family's house was probably destroyed, as it was 
actually on the sea-coast." 



245 



CHAPTER XXIV 
GERMANY'S FATAL WAR ZONE 

THE WARNING TO NEUTRAL NATIONS — UNITED 
STATES REFUSED TO RECOGNIZE WAR ZONE — ^A 

VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS AIMED AT 

NEUTRAL SHIPPING — ^AN INHUMAN POLICY. 

THE GERMAN imperial decree making all of the 
waters surrounding the British Isles a war zone and 
threatening to destroy ships and crews found therein 
after February 18, 1915, whether they were English 
or neutral, raised a storm of protest in the United 
States. The decree read: 

'^The waters around Great Britain and Ireland, 
including the whole English Channel, are declared a 
war zone from and after Februarj^ 18, 1915. 

''Every enemy ship found in this war zone will be 
destroyed, even if it is impossible to avert dangers 
which threaten the crew and passengers. 

''Also, neutral ships in the war zone are in danger, 
as in consequence of the misuse of neutral flags ordered 
by the British government on January 31 and in view 
of the hazards of naval warfare it cannot always be 
avoided that attacks meant for enemy ships shaU 
endanger neutral ships. 

"Shipping northward, around the Shetland Islands, 
in the eastern basin of the North Sea, and in a strip 
246 



GERMANY'S FATAL WAR ZONE 

of at least thirty nautical miles in breadth along the 
Dutch coast, is endangered in the same way." 

As plainly as words could state it, this was a warning 
that American and other neutral vessels might be 
sunk by German submarines and that Germany would 
repudiate responsibility for such action. The American 
press denounced the declaration and its intent, and 
the United States government made public a note to 
Germany, containing the following paragraph : 

UNITED STATES REFUSED TO RECOGNIZE WAR ZONE 

"If the commanders of German vessels of war 
should act upon the presumption that the flag of the 
United States was not being used in good faith and 
should destroy on the high seas an American vessel, 
or the lives of American citizens, it would be difficult 
for the government of the United States to view the 
act in any other light than as an indefensible violation 
of neutral rights which it would be very hard indeed 
to reconcile with the friendly relations now happily 
subsisting between the two governments." 

Frederick R. Coudert, of New York, an authority 
on international law, said in discussing the war zone: 

"From the beginning the United States government 
always maintained the right to treat the open sea as 
a public highway, and refused to acquiesce in one 
attempt after another to establish a closed sea. It 
refused to submit to an imposition of the Sound dues 
by Denmark, or to recognize the Baltic as a closed 
sea. It refused to pay tribute to the Barbary 
powers for the privilege of navigating the Mediter- 
ranean, and gave notice to Russia that it would 

247 



GERMANY'S FATAL WAR ZONE 

disregard the claim to make the North Pacific a closed 

sea. 

A VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS 

''No one has ever pretended to assert a claim to 
control the navigation of the North Sea, and Germany 
has no more right to plant mines in the open sea 
between Great Britain and Belgium and France than 
she would have to do so in Delaware Bay, or than a 
property owner, who was annoyed by automobiles, 
would have to plant torpedoes in a turnpike. 

''The right to plant mines as a defense to a harbor, 
from which all vessels might lawfully be excluded, is 
one thing, but to destroy the use of the open sea as a 
highway, by sowing mines which might indeed destroy 
British ships, but might also destroy American ships, 
is an act of hostility which, if persisted in, would 
constitute a casus belli, and if we had Mr. Webster, 
or Mr. Marcey, or Mr. Evarts in Washington as Secre- 
tary of State, prompt notice would be given that for 
any damage done Germany would be held responsible." 

A representative quotation from the newspapers 
of the United States is the following: 

"The imperial decree making all of the waters sur- 
rounding the British isles a 'war zone,' and threatening 
to destroy ships and crews found therein after February 
18, whether they be English or neutral, is surely the 
maddest proposal ever put forth by a civilized nation. 

AIMED AT NEUTRAL SHIPPING 

"This excessively efficient method of warfare, how- 
ever, is one that most concerns England and France. 

248 



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The interest of the United States hes in the fact that 
the threat is aimed emphaticall}^ at neutral shipping. 

"Neutral nations were loath to accept the sinister 
meaning of the order when it was first pubhshed; but 
its intent was emphasized by Bismarck's old organ, 
the Hamburger Nachrichten : 

'' 'Beginning on February 18 everybody must take 
the consequences. The hate and envy of the whole 
world concern us not at all. If neutrals do not protect 
their flags against England, they do not deserve 
Germany's respect.' 

''The misuse of the American flag is annojdng to this 
country as well as exasperating to Germany, but no 
government in its senses would seriously threaten to 
make that an excuse for piratical operations. A 
merchant ship has a right to fly any flag the skipper 
has in his locker, particularly if thereby he can deceive 
an enemy and evade capture. The custom is as old 
as maritime v/arfare, and has been resorted to number- 
less times by every nation. 

"But this issue is trifling compared to the German 
effort to exclude neutral shipping from an arbitrarily 
decreed 'war zone.' It is officially admitted that this 
does not comprise a formal blockade, but it is clear 
that Germany is attempting to achieve the benefits 
of a blockade without its heavy responsibilities. 

AN INHUMAN POLICY 

"It is understood that she has a perfect right to hold 
up and search neutral ships in her declared 'war zone,' 
and to make prizes of such as carry contraband. But 
it is the possession of this very right which forbids 

249 



GERMANY'S FATAL WAR ZONE 

the inhuman poHcy she proclaims. She cannot plead 
ignorance of a vessel's identity, or attack it unless it 
refuses to stop when signaled. The burden of proof 
is upon the submarine, and to torpedo a vessel on 
suspicion merely would be unredeemed piracy and 
murder. 

''This is distinctly a case in which the convenient 
doctrine of 'military necessity' is not to be invoked. 
Nor would an occasional misuse of a neutral flag by 
belligerent vessels, as a ruse of war, justify a mistaken 
act of destruction. If every British merchantman 
approaching England flew the American colors, that 
would not excuse the torpedoing of one American ship. 

"These facts are stated with convincing clearness 
in the official protest sent from Washington to Berlin. 
We do not know who framed this document, although 
it bears distinct literary marks of revision by President 
Wilson. But whoever the men actually responsible 
for it, they produced a state paper which is a model 
of terseness, lucidity, dignified courtesy and force, 
an irrefutable presentation of the relevant principles 
of international law and justice. No loyal American 
wants trouble, but the blood of the most pacific citizen 
must move a little faster on reading the German decree 
and the restrained but perfectly straightforward reply 
sent by our government." 



250 



CHAPTER XXV 
MULTITUDINOUS TRAGEDIES AT SEA 

TWENTY-NINE VESSELS SUNK IN ONE WEEK 

EIGHTY-TWO NON-COMBATANT VESSELS DESTROYED 

IN GERMAN WAR ZONE THE ATTACK ON THE 

GULFLIGHT. 

THE FACT that the Lusitania was the twenty-ninth 
vessel to be sunk or damaged in one week in May in the 
war zone established by Germany around the British 
Isles throws into grim relief the ruthlessness of modern 
war. The naval battles of the past were engagements 
of dignity in which, when a vessel was lost, it went down 
with a certain tragic magnificence after a fair fight; 
but most of the vessels lost in the European war have 
been the victims of torpedoes, struck by stealthy blows 
in the dark. In less than three months, from February 
18 to May 7, 1915, no less than eighty-two merchant 
vessels belonging either to the Allies or to neutral 
nations were torpedoed or mined in the war zone, with 
a loss of life estimated at 1,704 non-combatants — a 
terrible sacrifice to modern warfare. 

Naturally the greater number of these merchant ships 
were British, but the fact that the war zone was pro- 
claimed by Germany with a view to stopping neutral 
shipping as well is established by the figures which show 
that among the eighty-two non-combatant vessels 

251 



MULTITUDINOUS TRAGEDIES 

destroyed there v/ere French, Russian, Norwegian, 
Swedish, Dutch, Danish, Greek and three American 
vessels, the latter being the Evelyn, sunk by a mine 
explosion February 20; the Carib, sunk b}'- a mine 
explosion February 22, and the Gulflight, torpedoed 
May 1. 

In addition to these eighty-two cases of non-com- 
batant vessels destroyed, there have been innumerable 
instances of unsuccessful attacks, of which a notable 
example was the double attempt to sink the American 
tank steamship Gushing, once by a Zeppelin which 
aimed three bombs at the vessel, and once by a sub- 
marine which placed a contact mine directly in the path 
of the ship; her bow narrowlj'' missed the mine, and 
her stern struck it a glancing blow, but not with suffi- 
cient force to explode it. 



THE ATTACK ON THE GULFLIGHT 

It would require many hundreds of pages to recount 
the details of all of these crimes against non-combatant 
merchant ships, and to show the relentless severity with 
which neutral commerce has been attacked, but the 
organized military measures even against neutral ships 
are weU illustrated by the case of the American ship 
Gulflight, as described by the second officer, Paul 
Bower : 

"When the Gulflight left Port Arthur, Texas, on 
April 10, bound for Rouen, France," said Bower, "we 
were followed by a warship of some description, which 
kept out of sight, but in touch by wireless and warned 
us not to disclose our position to smy one. 

"At noon Saturday, May 1, we were twenty-five 
252 



MULTITUDINOUS TRAGEDIES 

miles west of the SciUy Islands, a smaU group about 
thirty miles southwest of England. The weather was 
hazy, but not thick. About two and one-half miles 
ahead I saw a submarine. 

^'Twentj^-five minutes later we were struck by a 




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Kinsale, on South Coast of Ireland, close to Cork Harbor. 



torpedo on the starboard side, and there was a tremen- 
dous shock. The submarine had not reappeared on 
the surface before discharging the torpedo. 

"Previous to this, we had been met by two patrol 
boats, which accompanied us on either side. The boat 

253 



MULTITUDINOUS TRAGEDIES 

on our starboard side was so badly shaken by the 
explosion that her crew imagined that she also had been 
torpedoed. We immediately lowered the boats and 
left our ship and were quickly taken on board the patrol 
boats. But the fog increased and we drifted about all 
night and did not land at SciUy until 10.30 o'clock 
Sunday morning. 

"At midnight of Saturday, while still on board the 
patrol boat, Captain Gunter summoned me. I found 
him in bed and he said he wanted some one to roll a 
cigarette for him. He then tossed up his arms and 
fainted. From then until the time of his death, which 
occurred about 3.30 o'clock Sunday morning, he 
remained unconscious. 

''Captain Gunter' s speech was thick and indistinct, 
but we could distinguish that he wished some one to 
take care of his wife. The crew had always regarded 
Captain Gunter as a healthy man and had never 
heard him complain." 

Second Assistant Engineer Crist, of the Gulflight, 
said: 

''I was on watch in the engine room when we were 
torpedoed, and so terrible was the blow that the Gulf- 
Mght seemed to be tumbling to pieces. She appeared 
to be lifted high in the air and then to descend rapidly. 
I told the boys to beat it as quickly as possible and 
shut the engines down. 

''Reaching the deck, I found them launching both 
life-boats. We got safely into them, with the excep- 
tion of wireless operator Short and a Spanish seaman, 
who had dived overboard when they felt the shock, and 
were drowned." 
254 



CHAPTER XXVI 
HOW "NEUTRAL" WATERS ARE VIOLATED 

THE THREE-MILE LIMIT BELLIGERENTS' RIGHTS 

NOTICE IN LEAVING NEUTRAL WATERS EVASIONS 

OF NEUTRALITY. 

"A NEUTRAL Jias a perilous part to sustain." So 
says Louis XI to his treacherous minister, Cardinal 
Balue, in Scott's famous novel. The dictum is true 
enough even when a strong state is in question. For 
Great Britain the question of neutrality is of great 
importance in so far as it affects her on the sea. His- 
torically, of course, neutrality is rather a modern 
development. Small and weak states in the earlier 
ages of the world had little hope of keeping themselves 
free from the havoc of a great world conflict. Great 
naval powers, such as the Hanseatic League, Genoa, 
and Venice, did, during the Middle Ages, succeed at 
times in inspiring respect for their neutrality, but it 
was at best precarious, and strong states rarely paid 
much respect to neutral waters. Early in the reign 
of Charles I the Dutch destroyed a Spanish fleet in 
the very Downs; and though Charles was master of a 
strong naval power he made no attempt to resent the 
insult. In this case, of course, there were special 
reasons for England's apathy, but the incident is sig- 
nificant. Roughly speaking, it may be laid down as 

255 



"NEUTRAL" WATERS VIOLATED 

an axiom that in all the ages of history the neutrality 
of a state, on sea as on land, has been respected 
only in so far as it has possessed the power to make 
it so. 

THE THREE-MILE LIMIT 

During the Napoleonic wars, Great Britain was in 
constant trouble with the United States owing to the 
fashion in which British naval commanders exercised, 
and sometimes abused, the right of searching American 
ships for contraband of war. The British-American 
quarrels had the good effect that attempts were mxade to 
standardize and establish on a firm basis the laws of 
neutrality at sea. The naval portion of the Neutrality 
Conference of 1907 contains twenty-eight clauses, of 
which the first* provides that belligerents must respect 
neutral waters. Where the coast borders the open sea 
the neutral zone extends to three miles from the shore. 
As this is well within the- range of even small naval 
guns it is clear that an opportunity is afforded to an 
unscrupulous captain of sinking vessels which have 
crossed the neutral line. In the case of a power control- 
ling the entrance to inland seas the provision becomes 
of enormous importance. 

belligerents' rights 

Within neutral waters belligerents may not take 
prizes, hold prize courts, nor establish warlike bases, 
nor may they obtain supplies therein. At the same 
time neutrality is not held to be compromised by the 
simple passage through neutral waters of belligerent 
ships and prizes. Belligerent vessels may also obtain 
256 



"NEUTRAL" WATERS VIOLATED 

the help of pilots. The neutral state must use all its 
endeavor to be impartial and must expel or warn off 
vessels guilty of breaches of neutrality. 

Except in special cases a belligerent warship may 
make a stay of only twenty-four hours in neutral 
waters. The special cases would usually be those of 
vessels disabled or otherwise in distress or storm-bound. 
When damaged a warship may remain long enough in a 
neutral port to effect necessary repairs, but it must 
not take on board extra armament, ammunition, or 
reinforcements of men. If out of coal it must only 
take on board sufficient to carry it to its nearest home 
port. Nor is it supposed to fill up with food stores 
beyond its ordinary supply in time of peace. In 
all these cases the neutral authorities are the judges. 
It must be obvious that a weak neutral state will be 
in a terrible quandary if the vessel be a powerful 
one and the country to which it belongs a powerful one. 

NOTICE IN LEAVING NEUTRAL WATERS 

The belhgerent ship must give twenty-four hours' 
notice before leaving, and must not visit the same port 
again until three months have elapsed. Should it 
break the neutrality laws the neutral state authorities 
may incapacitate it for immediate service and detain it, 
leaving on board just as many of the crew as are neces- 
sary to keep it clean and in order. The steps taken 
would generally be to remove the vitally necessary 
engine and gun fittings. Should two hostile ships 
enter a neutral port they must, while there, observe 
its neutrality, and must leave at an interval of twenty- 
four hours. 

17 257 



"NEUTRAL" WATERS VIOLATED 

EVASIONS OF NEUTRALITY 

It must be obvious from all this that the inviolability 
of neutrality will always depend very much upon the 
ability of the state concerned to keep it so. 

It is not difficult, either, to imagine various methods 
by which the neutrality, which is supposed to govern 
within the three-mile limit, may be evaded. It is only 
necessary to cite the case of a war vessel unable to over- 
take a fast merchant-man until the latter reaches 
neutral waters, but successful in sinking it by long- 
range gun-fire from a point outside the three-mile 
limit. 



258 



CHAPTER XXVII 
THE TERRIBLE DISTRESS OF POLAND 

A LONG-TORTURED NATION AGAIN BLIGHTED BY 

WAR DESOLATION AND FAMINE THROUGHOUT 

LAND ^RICH AND POOR ALIKE DESTITUTE PLIGHT 

OF RUSSIAN POLAND NO BREAD FOR WEEKS IN 

LODZ THREE TIMES A BATTLE-FIELD UNABLE TO 

HELP HERSELF NO SEED AND NO DRAFT ANIMALS. 

"IF YOU imagined all the people of New York State 
deprived of everything they owned, left a prey to 
starvation and disease, and hopelessly crushed under 
the iron heels of contending armies, you might form a 
slight idea of what the Poles are enduring at present," 
declared the great pianist, Paderewski, while visiting 
America in 1915 in the interests of the afflicted nation. 
^'One of the worst phases of the situation lies in the 
inability of the inhabitants of one-half of the country 
to communicate with those in the other. Compared 
with their lot, even that of the Belgians loses some of 
its horror, for my unhappy countrymen have no France, 
Holland, or England in which they can seek refuge." 
Girt by a ring of war, Poland in the winter and spring 
of 1915 was in the most terrible straits. Her cities 
and villages had been captured and recaptured by 
both Germans and Russians, her fields had been laid 
waste, and her inhabitants were slowly dying of 
starvation. 

259 



TERRIBLE DISTRESS IN POLAND 

DESOLATION AND FAMINE THROUGHOUT LAND 

''If figures can give any idea of the immensity of 
this disaster," pleaded the great musician, ''then these 
may convey a shght impression of what has gone on 
in Poland: An area equal in size to the states of 
Pennsylvania and New York has been laid waste. 
The mere money losses, due to the destruction of 
property and the means of agriculture and industry, 
are $2,500,000,000. A whole nation of 18,000,000 
people, including 2,000,000 Jews, are carrying the 
burden of the war in the east on their backs, and their 
backs are breaking under the load. The great majority 
of the whole Polish people, about 11,000,000 men, 
women and children, peasants and workmen, have 
been driven into the open, their homes taken from 
them or burned, and they flee, terror-stricken, hungry 
and in confusion, whither they know not. In ruins, 
in woods or in hollows they are hiding, feeding on roots 
and the bark of trees. It is Christian humanity that 
calls for help for succumbing Poland." 

"From the banks of the Niemen to the summits of 
the Carpathians," wrote the novelist, Henryk Sien- 
kiewicz, in his plea to the American people, "fire has 
destroyed the towns and villages, and over the whole 
of this huge, desolated country the specter of famine 
has spread its wings; all labor and industry have been 
swept away; the ploughshare is rusted; the peasant 
has neither grain nor cattle; the artisan is idle; all 
works and factories have been destroyed; the trades- 
man^ cannot sell his wares; the hearth fire is extin- 
guished, and disease and misery prevail. To such starv- 
ing people, crying out for aid, listen, Christian nations." 
260 



TERRIBLE DISTRESS IN POLAND 



KICH AND POOR ALIKE DESTITUTE 

The Polish ReHef Committee, headed by Madame 
Sembrich, published this word from the great tenor, 
Jean de Reszke, whose home is in Paris: 

"My poor brother was unable to get away from the 
war zone in time. He wrote this letter several weeks 
ago, and now I fear he may never survive the terrible 
hardships. He 
had plenty of 
monej^ and a 
splendid estate, 
but all were swept 
away." 

The letter re- 
ferred to shows 
that there is no 
leveler like war. 
It runs: 

"Mydearbroth- 
er, whether this 
will ever get 
through the lines 

and reach you I do not know. I am sure no man 
could get through alive, with all this fighting and 
the continual bombardment going on on every hand. 

"The war broke with such suddenness that it was 
impossible to escape. I was forced to remain here on 
my estate in Garnesk. This part of Poland has been 
reduced to worse than a desert. All is desolate and 
every one is suffering. My beautiful estate has met 
the common fate and been reduced to ashes. I am 
now living in a cellar with scanty covering. If a 

261 




The Harvest-moon in Europe. 



TERRIBLE DISTRESS IN POLAND 

shell should drop in it would afford no protection. So 
fierce has been the fighting here that there have been 
days when I could not venture forth. We have been 
between two fires. All Poland needs relief. 

"I have no coal, oil, coffee, and only a handful of 
grain left. Through the cold and the rain I have had 
but poor shelter, but my lot is the same as that of my 
fellow countrymen here. Every one is in want; every 
one is suffering. Many are dead, and many more will 
die unless aid reaches them soon. Prince Lukouirski 
and his wife recently reached here and are sharing my 
cellar with me. Their own beautiful estate has been 
destroyed, and even the cellar blown to atoms by the 
shells." 

PLIGHT OF RUSSIAN POLAND 

Mr. Herbert Corey, writing from Berlin to the New 
York Globe, in the spring of 1915, declared that unless 
something was done the world would be horrified — if 
the world had not lost its capacity for horror — by the 
sufferings of the Poles. ''Soon cholera will come to 
Poland. Famine is there now. Scarlet fever and 
typhoid and smallpox and enteric and typhus are old 
settlers." The million now in utter want only live 
at all because ''humanity has a wonderful capacity 
for adjustment to wretchedness. 

"There are 6,000,000 Poles in the portion of Russian 
Poland that is being fought over. Of these, according 
to the Red Cross men, 1,000,000 are absolutely desti- 
tute. They are without food or the means to buy 
food. They are living on the charity of others who 
are but slightly better off. That charity must come 
262 



TERRIBLE DISTRESS IN POLAND 

to an end soon — because food is coming to an end. It 
is not merely that money is lacking. Flour is lacking. 
It must be imported or starvation follows. 

'^Russian Poland is a conspicuous example of Russian 
rule. No measure of self-government is permitted the 
people. All governing officials are appointed from 
Petrograd. Lodz, for example, a city which contains 
from 500,000 to 750,000 people — all statistics in Poland 
are mere guesses — is ruled by a mayor and four assist- 
ants, all sent out from Russia. No city may expend 
more than $150, American money, for its own purposes, 
except permission is secured from Petrograd. That 
permission is rarely given. Petrograd needs the taxes 
that Lodz pays. When permission is given it is long 
delayed. Therefore, Lodz, a town as large as St. Louis, 
has unpaved streets that are ankle-deep in mud in 
winter and ankle-deep in dust in summer. It has a 
privately owned and paid fire department that responds 
only to calls from its own clients. Ninety per cent of its 
residents live in sties on streets that are mere stenches. 

"And yet Lodz is the second cotton-manufacturing 
town in Europe. It is excelled only by Manchester 
in its manufacturing totals. Isolated on the bleak 
plains of Poland, at a distance from a seaport, served 
by two railroads only, it is an anomaly in the com- 
mercial world. 

NO BREAD FOR WEEKS IN LODZ 

'^For two weeks Lodz had no bread at all. For 
months it has had no meat at all — so far as the poorer 
classes are concerned. During those two weeks the 
mass of the population lived on potatoes. 

263 



TERRIBLE DISTRESS IN POLAND 

'' Conditions were slightly worse in Czenstochow, the 
second city in Russian Poland. Here 90,000 people 
live. It has no street-lights. It has no attempt 
at street-paving. It has no sewers. It has no city 
water. It has no publicly maintained fire department, 
though a few of the merchants have a department of 
their own. It is pre -middle-ages in everything — 
morals, discomfort, filth, darkness, disease, death-rate. 
Cholera is there all the time. Most of its people exist 
in reeking hovels, smoke-filled when they can afford 
fires, wet and cold at other times. 

"As the towns grow smaller, conditions grow worse." 

THREE TIMES A BATTLE-FIELD 

If the war had not come, these people would have 
prospered after a fashion. Potatoes were plentiful, 
and they had few other wants. A woman earned 
thirty cents a day in the mills and a man three cents 
more. Children worked as soon as they were old 
enough. Sixty-five per cent are whoUj^ illiterate. 
Then— 

"Russia struck at Germany. The German armies 
invaded Poland in retaliation. They swept almost to 
Warsaw — and an invading army sweeps fairly clean. 
There were some things left when they passed over. 
They were driven back, and the Russian armies covered 
this territorjT^ — and they gleaned what was left. Then 
the Russians were driven back — sacking as they went — 
and the Germans covered the ground once more. Three 
times unhappy Poland has been fought over. It had 
fittle at the beginning. It has nothing now. For 
months Poland has been starving, not merely going 
264 



TERRIBLE DISTRESS IN POLAND 

hungry. That is a commonplace of war. Poles have 
been dying because they cannot get food. 

UNABLE TO HELP HERSELF 

'' Poland is quite unable to help herself. Most of 
the mills — probably all of the mills — are owned by 
Russian and German and French capitalists. The 
banks are all branches of foreign institutions. These 
concerns are all conducted by resident managers. 
Some of the managers have — on their own responsi- 
bility — given their work people two and a half and three 
cents a day each for food. Some have added a trifle 
for the children also. But this has practically come to 
an end. The managers have exhausted their supply 
of cash. They cannot get more. There are no mails. 
The towns of Poland are each printing their own paper 
money — not by consent of the Russian bureaucrats, but 
in defiance of them — but this money circulates only 
within the town's borders. It is highly improbable 
it will ever be redeemed in real money. Meanwhile 
the price of food commodities has risen fifty per cent 
in two months. By the time this reaches America 
the prices may have doubled. 

NO SEED AND NO DRAFT ANIMALS 

"Conditions are slightly better in the agxi cultural 
sections. The farmers have no seed and no draft 
animals, it is true. But they have fairly good supplies 
of potatoes. Last year's potato-crop was an enormous 
one. 

"There is a Jewish question in every city of Poland. 
Where there is a Jewish question in Russia there are 

265 



TERRIBLE DISTRESS IN POLAND 

riots. There will be more rioting in Poland unless 
Providence intervenes. Russia has always confined 
her Jews to the pale. Being forced to make their 
living by trading, their naturally sharp wits have been 
whetted. Today they are — broadly speaking — owners 
of every shop in Poland. There may be Christian 
shopkeepers here and there. People who know Poland 
doubt it. 

"Beggars follow the stranger in the Polish cities. 
Some of them are mute. They only look at the stranger 
through hollow eyes and hold out skinny hands. Others 
are vociferous. They cling to the garments of the 
passer-by. They cry for aid in an uncouth dialect. 
They run out from darkened doorways. The man who 
gives is pursued by a cue of them." 



266 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

THE GHASTLY HAVOC WROUGHT BY 
THE AIR-DEMONS 

THE HORROR OF BOMB-DROPPING — ^ANTI-AIRCRAFT 

GUNS KINDS OF BOMBS STEEL DARTS— "aRROW 

bullets" and aerial torpedoes MACHINE GUNS 

IN AIRCRAFT ^ACCURACY IN DROPPING BOMBS. 

TEN YEARS ago the dropping of bombs from bal- 
loons was stiU considered an illegitimate form of war- 
fare, involving danger to non-combatants, and was 
under the ban of the Geneva Convention. At the 
Hague Peace Conference the Germans refused to 
abstain from bomb-dropping, and other nations fol- 
lowed suit. According to the German conception 
of war, civilians in the theater of operations must 
take their chance of being killed, but must not shoot 
back under pain of summary execution. The horrors 
which this theory has added to war have proved only 
too real, but, so far as bomb-dropping is concerned, 
the reality has so far fallen short of anticipations. 
The great Zeppelins, capable of carrying a ton of 
explosives, have practically been frightened out of 
the air by the new anti-aircraft guns; and, except 
for one instance at Antwerp, bomb-dropping has been 
confined to aeroplanes. Now, in the first place, an 
aeroplane can carry only a limited weight of bombs — 

267 



GHASTLY HAVOC OF AIR-DEMONS 




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GHASTLY HAVOC OF AIR- DEMONS 

say, two hundred pounds; and in the second place, it 
is extraordinarily difficult to hit anything with them. 
If the airman could hover over his target and take 
deliberate aim, he might be more dangerous; as it 
is, the German airman finds a cathedral hardly a big 
enough mark. The British airmen, at Diisseldorf 
and Lake Constance, adopted a different plan from 
the Germans; instead of dropping bombs from a 
great height, they made a steep "vol piqu^" down 
on to the target, turned sharply up again, and dropped 
the bomb at the moment when the plane was checked 
by the elevator. This plan is more dangerous, but 
affords a better chance of hitting. 

KINDS OF BOMBS 

Various kinds of bombs are used for dropping from 
aeroplanes. A simple pattern shown in Fig. 1 
consists of a thin spherical shell of steel, containing 
twelve pounds of tetranitranihn, which is an explosive 
more powerful than melinite. The stem of the bomb, 
by which it is handled, has an external screw-thread, 
and carries a pair of vanes. While in the position 
shown, the bomb is harmless, but as it drops, the vanes 
screw themselves up to the top of the stem till they 
press against the stop. This, by means of a rod 
passing down the center of the stem, "arms" or 
prepares the fuse seen at the bottom of the bomb, 
so that it acts at the slightest touch, even on the 
wing of another aeroplane. The fuse effects the 
explosion of the burster by means of a primer of azide 
of lead, which causes the tetranitranihn to detonate 
with great violence. The whole bomb weighs twenty- 

269 



GHASTLY HAVOC OF AIR-DEMONS 

two pounds, and an aeroplane usually carries six 
of them. 

The Italians, in their campaign in Tripoli, used 
similar bombs, but without the special device for 
rendering the fuse sensitive. These were not a suc- 
cess, as many of them failed to explode in the desert 
sand, and the Arabs used to collect them and throw 
them into the Italian trenches at night. 

STEEL DARTS 

The Taube aeroplanes, when they flew over Paris, 
used sometimes to drop steel darts pointed at one 
end and flattened and feathered at the other, as shown 
in Fig. 2. These were put up in boxes of a hundred, 
so that when the box was released from its hook, it 
turned over and released the darts. 

''arrow bullets" and aerial torpedoes 

The ''arrow bullet" shown in Fig. 3 is a French 
device; though weighing only three-quarters of an 
ounce, its peculiar shape enables it to acquire a high 
velocity, so that it will kill a man when dropped from 
a height of six hundred yards. An aerial torpedo 
carried by French aeroplanes for the destruction of 
Zeppelins is shown in Fig. 4; it contains a powerful 
charge of explosive and a fuse, to which the suspend- 
ing-wire is connected. When dropped on a Zeppelin, 
the needle-pointed torpedo pierces the envelope and 
gas-chamber, but the wooden cross is arrested and 
the sudden jerk on the suspending- wire sets the fuse 
in action, causing the certain destruction of the air- 
ship. The torpedo would be too dangerous to handle, 
270 



GHASTLY HAVOC OF AIR-DEMONS 

but the French have an ingenious device which ren- 
ders it perfectly safe until it is dropped. 

MACHINE GUNS IN AIRCRAFT 

Various attempts have been made to mount ma- 
chine guns on aeroplanes, but the operator, in his 
narrow seat, has hardly space to point a machine 
gun in any direction except straight to his front. 
The American Curtis machine gun exhibited at Olym- 
pia is the most efficient form yet produced, but at 
present the airman seems to prefer an automatic 
rifle. Even in the early days of the war, Sir John 
French was able to report that British airmen had 
disposed of no less than five of the enemy's aircraft 
with this weapon. 

The Zeppelins are well armed with machine guns, 
carrying one in each of the two cars, and one on top 
of the structure. Access is had to the latter by means 
of a shaft and ladder which passes up through the 
gas-chambers. 

ACCURACY IN DROPPING BOMBS 

The Zeppelins have elaborate bomb-dropping appa- 
ratus with which it should be theoretically possible 
to drop a bomb with great accuracy, but on the occa- 
sion when it was tried at Antwerp, the Germans met 
with no great success. The principle of the bomb- 
dropping device is as follows: A sort of camera, 
pointed vertically downwards, is used, and an ob- 
server notes the speed with which an object on the 
ground passes across the field, and the direction in 
which it appears to move. He then reads the height 

271 



GHASTLY HAVOC OF AIR-DEMONS 

of the airship from the barometer, which gives the 
time taken by the bomb to fall, say fifteen seconds for 
3,500 feet. He has now to calculate, from the data 
given by the camera-observation, the allowance to 
be made for speed and leeway for fifteen seconds of 







^^-^ — n 


' 


/MAissrotti CAm»*do«tf'r^ 


-^..,^__^y 




^/ 


^^^^^,0HT«^ 


jissr!^ 


■J^'" 



Scene of Air Raid on England. 

Leigh, shown on the map, is only twenty-five miles from the British 
capital, and South End just five miles fml^her on. The fleet of Zeppelins, 
or aeroplanes, or both, it will be seen, got uncomfortably close to the British 
metropolis. 

fall, and to point his sighting-tube accordingly. The 
air-ship is steered to windward of the target, and at 
the moment when the target (say, the second funnel 
of a dreadnaught) appears on the cross wires, the 
nine hundred-pound bomb is dropped, and the ship 
goes to the bottom. 
272 



CHAPTER XXIX 

THE DEADLY SUBMARINE AND ITS 
STEALTHY DESTRUCTION 

NEW COMPLICATIONS IN NAVAL ATTACK ATTACK 

ON LINER DESCRIBED OPERATION OF TORPEDOES 

NETS TO TRAP SUBMARINES HOW CRAFT SUB- 
MERGE. 

WHAT IS the value of the submarine in war? Is it 
so great that all our theories of naval attack and 
defense will have to be revised? Are the great battles 
of the future to be fought under water? Is a little 
vessel of a few hundred tons to make the dreadnaught 
useless? German naval tactics in the present war 
have made these questions interesting alike to the 
expert, who has his answers to them, and to the lay- 
man, who is profoundly ignorant on the whole subject. 

Simon Lake, an inventor who has done much to 
bring the submarine to its present degree of efficiency, 
says that ''it is the first weapon which has a potential 
power to destroy an invading force, and also to prevent 
an invading force from leaving its own harbors or 
roadsteads, but which is itself useless for invading 
purposes." This is at once an exaltation and a lim- 
itation of its effectiveness. Yet Captain Lake believes 
that it will be ''the most potent influence that has 
been conceived to bring about a permanent peace 
between maritime nations." 

18 273 



THE DEADLY SUBMARINE 

Heavy armament would have availed the Lusitania 
nothing, even if the vessel had been so equipped, 
declared Captain Lake. Even if the Cunarder had 
been bristling with guns from bow to stem, she could 
have done no damage to the under-water craft that 
attacked her. She was doomed when the submarine 
approached her. 

The submarine with its periscope three feet under 
water could not have been seen fifty feet distant from 
the liner's side, and the chances were she was 1,000 
yards distant. No shot from the vessel could have 
located her, though aimed by trained officers. 

ATTACK ON LINER DESCRIBED 

The scenes on both the vessel and the little submar- 
ine may be pictured from a theoretical description 
given by Captain Lake as follows: "The great ship, 
knowing the lurking danger, is traveling at her best 
speed limit, changing the course from time to time 
in a zigzag manner. Waiting beneath the surface 
of the calm sea a big submarine, now said to be capable 
of discharging a torpedo at a distance of five miles, 
rolls idly in the underground swell. Her crew is 
sleeping or talking in the semi-fetid atmosphere that 
the compressed air tanks relieve from time to time. 
An officer sits with his eye glued to a periscope, which 
constantly revolves that he may discern the rising 
smoke of an approaching vessel. 

"On the deck of the Lusitania passengers are loll- 
ing in steamer chairs or leaning over the rails. They 
covertly fear attack, yet the horizon shows no sign 
of the impending calamity. 
27d 



THE DEADLY SUBMARINE 

' "Suddenly the submarine commander focuses his 
periscope upon a faint and hazy Hne on the horizon. 
Closely he watches it move. An electric signal is 
given and the submarine crew is in place. Another 
and the boat swings silently and slowly on its course 
diagonal to that of the approaching vessel. The 
electric engines turn without noise. 

'^The vessels near each other. An order is trans- 
mitted from the conning tower to the forward com- 
partment of the submarine. The outside ports of 
two bow torpedo tubes are closed; compressed air 
drives out all water. Two inside ports are carefully 
opened and two one-ton torpedoes are hfted by means 
of chain tackle and swung carefully into the tubes. 
The inside ports are closed and the outside ports again 
opened. The air chamber between the torpedo and 
the breaches is filled with air compressed to nearly 
1,200 pounds to the square inch — nearly the force 
of exploding dynamite. 

''Both vessels are closing together at right angles. 
On the bigger one all is gayety and hope of early and 
safe arrival at port. On the submarine all are alert. 
The bow is carefully trained toward a direct line over 
which the ship must travel. The speed and distance 
are carefully gauged by trained officers. 

"The submarine sinks beneath the surface and men 
are stationed at the firing levers on each of the for- 
ward tubes. An officer stands with a watch in his 
hand, counting the seconds. A little bell tinkles 
over the lever man on the port or starboard side of 
the submarine. He pulls the lever which releases 
the trigger, and with a rush the enormous torpedo 

275 



' THE DEADLY SUBMARINE 

forces itself in a direct line toward the vessel. Another 
second elapses and the bell rings again. Similar 
action is observed on the submarine, which a moment 
later rises with its periscope above the slight ripple 
of the water. 

^' There is a deadening crash, as the shock is trans- 
mitted through the water and the resounding shell 
of the air-filled submarine. The officer at the submar- 
ine periscope, or conning tower, is the only living 
person on the submarine that sees a great vessel rise 
out of the water and slowly settle back. He knows 
that the shots have taken effect and he can offer no 
aid to the thousands who a moment later will be 
attempting to save their lives. He turns his bow 
homeward, or cruises for other victims of his mechani- 
cal ingenuity, as his sealed sailing orders may direct. 

OPERATION OF TORPEDOES 

"The course of the torpedo from the time it is 
released in the tube by the lever trip is interesting," 
said Captain Lake. "These torpedoes are made at 
a cost of $5,000 each, much of which is spent in test- 
ing. With their high charge of explosive placed well 
forward and a little plunger on the nose, connecting 
with a percussion cap, their interior presents the same 
view as that of a large steamship. The officer is a 
little gyroscope, impelled by compressed air. This in 
turn may be set from the outside to travel straight 
forward or on a curve, and by a timing device to change 
its course after a certain distance. Usually it is set 
to travel straight beneath the water at a depth of 
about fifteen feet. 
276 



THE DEADLY SUBMARINE 

'^To insure accuracy the torpedo without explosive 
charge must be fired many times from a fixed torpedo 
tube. It is finally inspected and passed. As it leaves 
the torpedo tube on its last journey the trip releases 
the compressed air which turns its turbine engine. 
That in turn revolves the propeller. The rudder, 
speed and depth of passage are actuated by the gyro- 
scope. 

"A torpedo has been fired accurately at a distance 
of five miles. The distance for accuracy is between 
fifty yards and one thousand. Owing to the concussion 
on the ear-drums of those in a submarine the greatest 
distance compatible with accuracy is sought. As the 
plunger on the torpedo strikes the vessel it explodes 
the charge almost directly against the side of the 
vessel. " 

NETS TO TRAP SUBMARINES 

The British naval authorities took measures to 
guard British shipping in the English Channel by 
stretching nets over as much of the water, particu- 
larly in the narrows, as possible. The nets are made of 
links of steel. These links are about six or eight 
inches in diameter and made of one-half inch steel. 
The nets are similar to those formerly used to guard 
battleships and large cruisers, but which have now 
been discarded because a torpedo will puncture the 
net and the second torpedo, which is fired only a 
second or two after the first, will go through the hole 
made by the first and reach the hull of the vessel. 

These chain nets are moored very securely and have 
buoys at the upper edges to hold them in position. 

277 



THE DEADLY SUBMARINE 

Often they are set just as a fisherman sets his nets. 
When the submarine, hke a fish, gets in the pound it 
cannot get out, and those in the vessel must either die 
there or take chances on reaching the surface and 
swimming to shore. 

It takes very Httle to disable a submarine. The 
hull is of comparatively thin steel which is easily 
punctured and the propeller when caught is absolutely 
useless. Even an ordinary fisherman's net wiU disable 
a submarine, and should one get foul of such a net 
the chances of getting clear are very slim. 

According to the German naval press, the latest 
submarines are fitted with double acting Diesel oil 
engines of 1,000 horse power or more. These engines 
are as simple and run as smoothly as marine steam 
engines and are as easily controlled. So strongly built 
are these craft that they can plunge to a depth of 150 
feet, at which the water pressure is enormous. 

HOW CRAFT SUBMERGE 

A security weight, as it is called, of about five tons 
is carried. This can be released from the inside of the 
vessel at a moment's notice, and the effect is like that 
of dropping a mass of ballast from an airship. When 
in diving trim, that is to say, when the boat is awash, 
an up-to-date submarine can disappear under water in 
fifteen seconds and re-emerge in twenty seconds. It 
can remain under water for a whole day and night, 
or even longer. 

A submarine when submerged is handled mechan- 
ically. Those in charge cannot see where the vessel 
is going. The officer in charge steers according to 
278 



THE DEADLY SUBMARINE 

the ranges he has taken when on the surface, and it 
is absolutely impossible to see obstructions that may 
be ahead. It is impossible to see another submarine 
unless the two are floating near the surface and in 
bright daylight. For this reason it is impossible for 
one submarine to fight another when submerged. 



279 



CHAPTER XXX 

THE TERRIBLE WORK OF ARTILLERY IN 

WAR 

SEVENTY PEE CENT OF CASUALTIES DUE TO 

ARTILLERY FIRE INCREASED RANGE MODERN 

GUNS HOW A BIG GUN IS AIMED — ^AWFUL DE- 

STRUCTIVENESS OF MODERN GUNS. 

A FULL century ago, Napoleon the Great, himself an 
artillery officer, had developed the fighting power of 
artillery of his day so as to make its fire a dominant 
factor on the battle-field. In the present war its action 
is even more important, since we learn from the front 
that seventy per cent of the casualties are due to 
artillery fire. It was the gun that took Liege and 
Antwerp, and it is the gun which held the contend- 
ing armies pent up within a semicircle of fire. 
Once massed formations were abandoned, the gun 
lost its terrors to a great extent, and did not regain 
its place in military estimation till the introduction 
of the shrapnel shell. 

This is a hollow steel projectile, packed with bullets, 
and containing a charge of powder in the base. (See Fig. 
1.) It is exploded by a time-fuse, containing a ring 
of slowly burning composition which can be set so as 
to fire the powder during the flight of the shell, when 
it has traveled to within fifty yards of the enemy. 
The head is blown off, and the bullets are projected 
280 



TERRIBLE WORK OF ARTILLERY 

forward in a sheaf, spreading outwards as they go. 
The British eighteen -pounder shell covers a space of 
ground some three hundred yards long by thirty-five 
yards wide with its 365 heavy bullets. 

INCREASED RANGE 

In 1885 the British brought out the twelve-pounder 
high-velocity field-gun, which remained for some years 




FIG. I 



FIG.Z FiG.3 

Types of Shells 



Fie-4 



Fig. 1 . — Shrapnel shell, packed with bullets that spread. Fig. 2. — A French 
quick-firer shell, like an enlarged rifle cartridge. Fig. 3. — The "Universal" 
shell, combining the action of shrapnel and high explosives. Fig. 4. — A fuse- 
setting machine. 

the best gun in Europe. Its power was afterwards 
increased by giving it a fifteen-pounder shell, and, as 
a fifteen-pounder, it did good work in South Africa. 
Then came another development, the quick-firing gun 

281 



TERRIBLE WORK OF ARTILLERY 

now being used in the war, with a steel shield to protect 
the detachment. The quick-firing gun is badly named; 
its high rate of fire is only incidental, and is rarely of 
use in the combat. The essential feature of the '^ Q.F. " 
gun, as it is generally styled, is that the carriage 
does not move on firing, so that the gunners can 
remain safely crouched behind the shield. 

MODERN GUNS 

The French gun as it was originally brought out has 
now been improved by the addition of a steel plate 
which closes the gap between the shields; and a steel 
shield is also provided to protect the officer standing on 
the upturned ammunition-wagon. 

The carriage does not move, and the men remain in 
their positions behind the shield while the gun recoils 
between them. The carriage is prevented from sharing 
the movement of recoil by the spade at the end of the 
trail, which digs into the ground so as to "anchor" it. 

RAPID FIRING 

The gun-recoil carriage, as the new invention was 
called, increases the rate of fire, since there is no delay 
in running up. The French were quick to develop 
this new feature, and set to work to make the rate of 
fire as high as possible. Up till then the ammunition 
fired from a field-gun had consisted of a shell, a bag of 
powder, and a friction-tube introduced through the 
vent to fire the charge. This was called a round of 
ammunition, and its complexity was increased by the 
fuse, which was carried separately and screwed into the 
shell when the round was prepared for loading, and 
282 



TERRIBLE WORK OF ARTILLERY 

afterwards set with a key to burst the shell at the 
required distance. The French combined the whole 
of these separate parts into one, so that a round of 
"fixed" ammunition, as now used, looks exactly like 
an enlarged rifle cartridge. (See Fig. 2.) 

Further, they did away with the cumbrous process 
of setting the fuse by hand, and introduced a machine 
which sets fuses as fast as the shell can be put into it. 
One of these machines is shown in Fig. 4. It is of a 
later pattern than that of the French service gun, being 
the one used by the Servians with their new gun made 
by the famous firm of Schneider of Creusot. The 
machine is set to the range ordered by the battery 
commander, the shell is dropped into it, and a turn 
of the handle sets the fuse. 

HOW A BIG GUN IS AIMED 

The independent line of sight is another modern 
device for facilitating the service of a gun. With this 
the gear for giving the gun the elevation necessary to 
carry a shell to the required distance is kept entirely 
separate from that used for pointing the gun at the 
target. The gun-layer has merely to keep his sighting 
telescope on the target, while another man puts on the 
range-elevation ordered by the battery commander. 

The result of all these improvements is that the best 
quick-firing guns (among which the French gun is still 
reckoned) are capable of firing twenty-five rounds a 
minute. The German field-gun is hardly capable of 
twenty rounds a minute, being an inferior weapon 
converted from the old breech-loader. 

But these high rates of fire are used only on emer- 

283 



TERRIBLE WORK OF ARTILLERY 

gency, as a gun firing twenty-five rounds a minute 
would exhaust the whole of the ammunition carried 
with it in the battery in three minutes. 

One of the first consequences of the introduction of 
the shielded gun was the reappearance of the old com- 
mon shell in an improved form. The common shell is 
almost as old as Agincourt, and consisted simply of a 
hollow shell filled with powder, which exploded on 
striking the object. When shrapnel came into use most 
nations abandoned the common shell. But shrapnel 
proved almost ineffective against the shielded gun, and 
the gunners were indifferent to the bullets pattering on 
the steel shield in front of them. The answer to this 
was the high-explosive shell, a steel case filled with 
high explosive, such as melinite, which is the same as 
lyddite, shimose, or picric acid. This, when detonated 
upon striking a gun, can be rehed upon to disable it and 
to kill the gunners behind it. 

AWFUL DESTRUCTIVENESS OF MODERN GUNS 

Of late years a shell which combines the action of 
the shrapnel and the high-explosive shell has been 
introduced. This is the "Universal" shell (see Fig. 3) 
invented by Major van Essen, of the Dutch Artillery. 
It is a shrapnel with a detachable head filled with high 
explosive. When burst during flight it acts like an 
ordinary shrapnel, and the bullets fly forward and 
sweep the ground in front of it; at the same time the 
head, with its explosive burster, flies forward and acts 
as a small but efficient high-explosive shell. These 
projectiles have been introduced for howitzers and for 
anti-aircraft guns, and some of the nations with new 
284 



TERRIBLE WORK OF ARTILLERY 

equipments, such as the Balkan States, have them for 
their field-guns. Their introduction has, however, 
been delayed in Western Europe, as they are less 
efficient as such than the ordinaiy shrapnel, which is 
considered the principal field artillery projectile. 



285 



CHAPTER XXXI 

WHOLESALE SLAUGHTER BY POISONOUS 

GASES 

CANADIAN VICTIMS — TRENCH GAS AT YPRES — 

AWFUL FORM OF SCIENTIFIC TORTURE REPORT OF 

MEDICAL EXPERT KIND OF GAS EMPLOYED 

ALLIES FORCED TO USE SIMILAR METHODS. 

KILLING by noxious gases may be, as the Germans 
claim, no more barbarous than slaughter by shrapnel, 
but it has been denounced in America as a violation 
of all written and unwritten codes and as a backward 
step toward savagery. Certainly the descriptions of 
responsible persons who have witnessed the pernicious 
work of the gas only deepens the horror with which 
all peace-loving citizens look upon '^ civilized" war- 
fare. 

The following description of the effect is told by a 
responsible British officer who visited some Canadians 
who were disabled by gas: 

''The whole of England and the civilized world 
ought to have the truth fully brought before them 
in vivid detail, and not wrapped up as at present. 
When we got to the hospital we had no difficulty in 
finding out in which ward the men were, as the noise 
of the poor devils trying to get breath was sufficient 
to direct us. 
286 



WHOLESALE SLAUGHTER BY GASES 

CANADIAN VICTIMS 

''There were about twenty of the worst cases in the 
ward, on mattresses, all more or less in a sitting position, 
strapped up against the walls. Their faces, arms, and 
hands were of a shiny, gray-black color. With their 
mouths open and leaden-glazed eyes, all were swaying 
slightly backward and forward trying to get breath. 
It was a most appalling sight. All these poor black 
faces struggling for life, the groaning and the noise of 
the efforts for breath was awful. 

"There was practically nothing to be done for them 
except to give them salt and water and try to make 
them sick. The effect the gas has is to fill the lungs 
with a watery frothy matter, which gradually increases 
and rises until it fills up the whole lungs and comes to 
the mouth — then they die. It is suffocation, slow 
drowning, taking in most cases one or two days. Eight 
died last night out of twenty I saw, and the most of the 
others I saw will die, while those who get over the gas 
invariably develop acute pneumonia. 

"It is without doubt the most awful form of scientific 
torture. Not one of the men I saw in the hospital 
had a scratch or wound. The Germans have given out 
that it is a rapid, painless death — the liars. No torture 
could be worse than to give them a dose of their own 
gas." 

"trench gas" at ypres 

Asphyxiating gases seem to have been first used by 
the Germans in the fighting around Ypres in April, 
1915. The strong northeast wind, which was blowing 
from the German lines across the French trenches, 

287 



WHOLESALE SLAUGHTER BY GASES 

became charged with a sickening, suffocating odor 
which was recognized as proceeding from some form 
of poisonous gas. The smoke moved Hke a vivid green 
wall some four feet in height for several hundred yards, 
extending to within two hundred yards of the extreme 
left of the Allies' lines. Gradually it rose higher and 
obscured the view from the level. 

Soon strange cries were heard, and through the 
green mist, now growing thinner and patchy, there 
came a mass of dazed, reeling men who fell as they 
passed through the ranks. The greater number were 
unwounded, but they bore upon their faces the marks 
of agony. 

The retiring men were among the first soldiers of 
the world whose sang-froid and courage have been 
proverbial throughout the war. All were reeling 
like drunken men. 

AWFUL FORM OF SCIENTIFIC TORTURE 

"The work of sending out the vapor was done from 
the advanced German trenches. Men garbed in a 
dress resembling the harness of a diver and armed with 
retorts or generators about three feet high and con- 
nected with ordinary hose-pipe turned the vapor loose 
toward the French lines. Some witnesses maintain 
that the Germans spraj^ed the earth before the 
trenches with a fluid which, being ignited, sent up 
the fumes. The German troops, who followed up this 
advantage with a direct attack, held inspirators in 
their mouths, these preventing them from being over- 
come by the fumes. 

In addition to this, the Germans appear to have 

288 



WHOLESALE SLAUGHTER BY GASES 



fired ordinary explosive shells loaded with some chem- 
ical which had a paralyzing effect on all the men in the 
region of the explosion. Some chemical in the composi- 




Right-hand figure: British soldier 
wearing respirator with air valve on top. 



Left-hand figure: German with res- 
pirator and goggles armed ivith hurning- 
oil-distributor. 



Using Deadly Gas as a Weapon in War. 

The German use of poisonous gases that asphyxiate soldiers of the enemy 
against whom they are directed, has made it necessary to devise a new de- 
fense. The pictures show the devices used by those who dii-eet the use of the 
gases and those who have to meet their deadly vapors. 

tion of these shells produced violent watering of the 
eyes, so that the men overcome by them were practically 
blinded for some hours. 
The effect of the noxious trench-gas seems to be 

19 „ 289 



WHOLESALE SLAUGHTER BY GASES 

slow in wearing away. The men come out of their 
violent nausea in a state of utter collapse. '^ How 
many of the men left unconscious in the trenches when 
the French broke died from the fumes it is impossible 
to say, since those trenches were at once occupied by 
the Germans. 

REPORT OF MEDICAL EXPERT 

Dr. John S. Haldane, an authority on the physiolog}^ 
of respiration, who was sent by the British government 
to France to observe the effect of the gases, examined 
several Canadians who had been incapacitated by the 
gases. 

"These men/' he said, "were lying struggling for 
breath, and blue in the face. On examining their 
blood with a spectroscope and by other means I ascer- 
tained that the blueness was not due to the presence 
of any abnormal pigment. There was nothing to 
account for the blueness and their struggles for air but 
one fact, and that was that they were suffering from 
acute bronchitis, such as is caused by the inhalation 
of an irritant gas. Their statements were to the effect 
that when in the trenches they had been overwhelmed 
by an irritant gas produced in front of the German 
trenches and carried toward them by a gentle breeze. 

"One of the men died shortly after our arrival. A 
post-mortem examination showed that death was due 
to acute bronchitis and its secondary effect. There 
was no doubt that the bronchitis and accompanying 
slow asphyxiation was due to irritant gas. 

"Captain Bertram, of the eighth Canadian battalion, 
who is suffering from the effects of gas and from wounds, 
290 



WHOLESALE SLAUGHTER BY GASES 

says that from a support trench about six hundred 
yards from the German Hnes he observed the gas. He 
saw) first of all white smoke rising from the German 
trenches to a height of about three feet. Then in 
front of the white smoke appeared a green cloud which 
drifted along the ground to our trenches, not rising 
more than about seven feet from the ground. 

"When it reached our first trenches, the men in these 
trenches were obliged to leave, and a number of them 
were killed by the effects of the gas. We made a 
counter-attack about fifteen minutes after the gas 
came over, and saw twenty-four men lying dead from 
the effects of the gas on a small stretch of road leading 
from the advanced trenches to the supports. He, 
himself, was much affected by the gas, and felt as 
though he could not breathe. 

"These symptoms and other facts so far ascertained 
point to the use by the German troops of chlorine or 
bromide for the purpose of asphyxiation. There also 
are facts pointing to the use in German shells of other 
irritant substances. Still, the last of these agents are 
not of the same brutality and barbarous character as 
was the gas used in the attack on the Canadians. 

"The effects are not those of any of the ordinary 
products of combustion of explosives. On this point 
the symptoms described left not the slightest doubt in 
my mind." 

KIND OF GAS EMPLOYED 

Various have been the opinions of chemists as to the 
kind of gas employed. Sir James Dewar, President of 
the Royal Institution, was of the opinion that it was 

291 



WHOLESALE SLAUGHTER BY GASES 

liquid chlorine. Dr. F. A. Mason, of the Royal College 
of Science, considered it to have been bromine. Dr. 
Crocker, of the South-Western Polytechnic, said it 
may have been either carbon monoxide or liquid 
peroxide. Dr. W. J. Pope, Professor of Chemistry, 
Cambridge, and Sir E. Rutherford, Professor of Physics, 
Manchester University, agreed in thinking the gas to 
have been phosgene, a compound of carbon monoxide 
and chlorine, largely used in dye production in Ger- 
many. 

"For some years," stated Sir James Dewar, "Ger- 
many has been manufacturing chlorine in tremendous 
quantities. . . . The Germans undoubtedly have hun- 
dreds of tons available. If several tons of liquid are 
allowed to escape into the atmosphere, where it imme- 
diately evaporates and forms a yellow gas, and if the 
wind is blowing in a favorable direction, it is the easiest 
thing for the Germans to inundate the country with 
poison for miles ahead of them. 

"The fact that the gas is three times heavier than 
air makes escape from its disastrous effects almost 
impossible, for it drifts like a thick fog-cloud along the 
surface of the ground, overwhelming all whom it 
overtakes." 

ALLIES FORCED TO USE SIMILAR METHODS 

Of the German attack on the allied front near Ypres, 
Secretary of War, Earl Kitchener, speaking in the 
House of Lords on May 18, said: 

"In this attack the enemy employed vast quantities 
of poisonous gases, and our soldiers and our French 
allies were utterly unprepared for this diabolical 
292 



WHOLESALE SLAUGHTEH BY GASES 

method of attack, which undoubtedly had been long 
and carefully prepared." 

It was at this point that Earl Kitchener announced 
the determination of the Allies to resort to similar 
methods of warfare. 

''The Germans," said Earl Kitchener, ''have per- 
sisted in the use of these asphyxiating gases whenever 
the wind favored or other opportunity occurred, and 
His Majesty's government, no less than the French 
government, feel that our troops must be adequately 
protected by the employment of similar methods, so as 
to remove the enormous and unjustifiable disadvantage 
which must exist for them if we take no steps to meet 
on his own ground the enemy who is responsible for 
the introduction of this pernicious practice." 



293 



CHAPTER XXXII 

"USAGES OF WAR ON LAND": THE 
OFFICIAL GERMAN MANUAL 

CRIMES IN BELGIUM EXPLAINED BY INSTRUC- 
TIONS TO GERMAN OFFICERS UNLIMITED DES- 
TRUCTION THE END OF WAR RULES OF CIVILIZED 

WARFARE CLEARLY STATED OTHER EXCELLENT 

RULES. 

THE BLACK crime of Ijouvain, the world-lamented 
destruction of the cathedral of Rh^ims, the denudation 
of the fair land of Belgium, with all its horrible attend- 
ant crimes, is explained, in part at least, by "Usages 
of War on Land," the official manual of instructions 
to military officers compiled by the general staff of 
the German army. It is an authoritative exposition 
of the rules of war as practiced by the Germans. 

Two general principles bearing directly on the 
question of the invasion of Belgium are clearly stated 
in this guide: 

"A war conducted with energy cannot be directed 
merely against the combatants of the enemy state 
and the positions they occupy, but it will and must in 
like manner seek to destroy the total intellectual 
and material resources of the latter. Humanitarian 
claims, such as the protection of men and their goods, 
can only be taken into consideration in so far as the 
nature and object of the war permit. 
294 



USAGES OF WAR ON LAND 

"The fact that such Hmitations of the unrestricted 
and reckless appHcation of all the available means 
for the conduct of war, and thereby the humanization 
of the customary methods of pursuing war, really 
exist, and are actually observed by the armies of all 
civilized states, has in the course of the nineteenth 
century often led to attempts to develop, to extend, 
and thus to make universally binding these pre- 
existing usages of war; to elevate them to the level 
of laws binding nations and armies; in other words, 
to create a law of war. All these attempts have hither- 
to, with some few exceptions to be mentioned later, 
completely failed. If, therefore, in the following 
work the expression ^ the law of war ' is used, it must be 
understood that by it is meant not a written law 
introduced by the international agreements, but only 
a reciprocity of mutual agreement — a limitation of 
arbitrary behavior, which custom and conventionality, 
human friendliness and a calculating egotism have 
erected, but for the observance of which there exists 
no express sanction, but only Hhe fear of reprisals' 
decides." 

UNLIMITED DESTRUCTION THE END OF WAR 

Put in plain language, these passages mean that 
there is no law of war which may not be broken at the 
dictates of interest. Unlimited destruction is the 
end, and only fear of reprisals need limit the means. 
The sentimental humanitarianism and flabby emotion 
which prevail elsewhere have no place in the bright 
lexicon of the German officer. "By steeping himself 
in military history," the manual clearly states, "an 

295 



USAGES OF WAR ON LAND 

officer will be able to guard himself against excessive 
liumanitarian notions" and learn that ^'certain sever- 
ities are indispensable in war," and that ^'the only 
true humanity often lies in a ruthless application of 
them." Then there is laid down this comprehensive 
general rule: 

"All means of warfare may be used without which 
the purpose of war cannot be achieved. On the other 
hand, every act of violence and destruction which is 
not demanded by the purpose of war must be con- 
demned. " 

Interpreted by other passages in the volume, tliis 
implies that the end justifies the means. Barbarities 
may be forgiven if only they are useful. Thus "inter- 
national law is in no way opposed to the exploitation 
of the crimes of third parties — assassination, incen- 
diarism, robbery and the like — to the prejudice of 
the enemy." 

RULES OF CIVILIZED WARFARE CLEARLY STATED 

It must not be assumed, of course, that the German 
war manual is a defense of unlimited rapine. The 
rules of civilized warfare are usually stated clearly 
enough. But there are so many exceptions to the 
application of them that a zealous officer might well 
be pardoned if he regarded them as not binding when- 
ever it was to his interest to ignore them. Thus, 
after a careful statement of the right of the inhabit- 
ants of an invaded country to organize for its defense, 
the advantages of "terrorism" are candidly set 
forth as outweighing these considerations in manj 
instances. That policy has been illustrated in Belgium 
296 



USAGES OF WAR ON LAND 

very significantly. The difference between precept 
and practice is also seen in the prohibition of the bom- 
bardment of churches and unfortified towns. Re- 
garding the latter the manual says: 

^'A prohibition by international law of the bom- 
bardment of open towns and villages which are not 
occupied by the enemy or defended was, indeed, put 
into words by The Hague regulations, but appears 
superfluous, since modern military history knows of 
hardly any such case." 

Military history has been made since then, partic- 
ularly by the German air raids on English seashore 
resorts. 

OTHER EXCELLENT RULES 

Several other excellent rules in the manual may be 
contrasted with German practice in the present war. 

''No damage, not even the smallest, must be done 
unless it is done for military reasons. 

"Contributions of war are sums of money which 
are levied by force from the people of an occupied 
country. They differ in character from requisitions 
in kind because they do not serve an immediate 
requirement of the army. Hence, requisitions in 
cash are only in the rarest cases justified by the 
necessities of war. 

"The military government by the army of occupa- 
tion carries with it only a temporary right to enjoy 
the property of others. It must, therefore, avoid every 
purposeless injury, it has no right to sell or dispose 
of the property." 

"Usages of War on Land" makes interesting read- 

297 



USAGES OF WAR ON LAND 

ing throughout, though the conclusions that the im- 
partial reader will draw from it will not be in every case 
those which the German military authorities would 
have him draw. 



298 



CHAPTER XXXIII 

THE SACRIFICE OF THE HORSE IN 
WARFARE 

DUMB ANIMALS PRESSED INTO SERVICE PART 

PLAYED BY HORSE IN WAR AMERICAN STOCK 

DEPLETED. 

SO OVERWHELMING has been the thought of 
human suffering in Europe, so anxious has the world 
been to reheve it, that httle thought has been bestowed 
on the dumb sufferers. Various war photographs have 
shown us the novel sight of the dogs of Belgium im- 
pressed into service for dragging the smaller guns; but 
all contestants use horses, and when we reflect that the 
average hfe of a cavalry horse at the front is not more 
than a week, if that, we gain some idea of the sacrifice 
of animals which modern warfare demands. 

One of the pleaders for the horse is John Galsworthy, 
the English novelist, who gives in the London Westmin- 
ster Gazette this moral aspect of the use of the horse 
in warfare, with the attendant obUgation: 

"Man has only a certain capacity for feeling, and 
that has been strained almost to breaking-point by 
human needs. But now that the wants of our wounded 
are being seen to with hundreds of motor ambulances 
and hospitals fuUy equipped, now that the situation 
is more in hand, we can surely turn a little to the com- 
panions of man. They, poor things, have no option 

299 



THE SACRIFICE OF THE HORSE 

in this business; they had no responsibiUty, however 
remote and indirect, for its inception; get no benefit 
out of it of any kind whatever; know none of the sus- 
taining sentiments of heroism; feel no satisfaction in 
duty done. They do not even— as the prayer for them 
untruly says — 'offer their guileless lives for the well- 
being of their countries.' They know nothing of 
countries; they do not offer themselves. Nothing so 
little pitiable as that. They are pressed into this 
service, which cuts them down before their time." 

PART PLAYED BY HORSE IN WAR 

The horse still plays an important part in war, as 
every army service corps officer who has had anything 
to do with them well knows. The men love their 
mettlesome beasts, and much trouble and worry is 
pardoned and lost sight of in the comradeship which 
arises between man and beast. The great part played 
by motors and motor-driven vehicles in the present 
war has tended to draw attention awaj^ from the work 
of horses at the front, yet motor cavalry has not been 
evolved. While recognizing that for moving big guns 
along a well-made road motor power is very valuable, it 
is stiU equally true that once the roads are left it is 
found in practice of little use. 

A remarkable feature of the European war, new, 
so far as we know, to military experience, has been the 
use upon an extensive scale of the heavy draught horse, 
whose stately pace admits of no hurrying, but whose 
great strength permits of his hauling very heavy weights 
where the nature of the road does not admit of the use 
of the motor. 
300 



THE SACRIFICE OF THE HORSE 

AMERICAN STOCK DEPLETED 

That the European war threatened to deplete the 
stock of horses even in the United States is emphasized 
by a careful computation which fixed at 185,023 the 
number of horses shipped to the warring nations from 
July 1, 1914, to March 31, 1915. The value of the 
animals, according to an inventory compiled from the 
manifests of ships transporting the horses is placed at 
$40,695,057. During that same period 26,976 mules, 
valued at $5,143,270, were sent abroad. 

Buyers representing the British, French and Russian 
governments were reported as searching the country 
for more, and, according to estimates made by shippers, 
at least 120,000 animals were to be shipped to Europe 
during the summer of 1915. 

Frank L. Neall, statistician, asserted that few persons 
realized the extent of the raid made by European 
buyers on the horse market. "Shipments," he said, 
"have been made from New Orleans, Newport News, 
Portland, Boston and New York. During the month 
of March, 33,694 horses were shipped, representing a 
value of $8,088,974." 

Shippers were deeply interested when it became 
known for a certainty that the German government 
had representatives purchasing horses in the West. 
Wood Brothers, the largest horse dealers in Nebraska, 
were asked to bid on a 25,000-head shipment. Ruling 
prices for the grade of horses desired by foreign buyers 
have ranged from $175 to $200 per head. 

The stockyards in New Orleans, where these animals 
were assembled, cover about eight acres and shed 3,500 
animals. Horses were thoroughly examined as to 

301 



THE SACRIFICE OF THE HORSE 

their fitness for service, both at the point of purchase 
and at New Orleans. 

The last step before placing the horses on shipboard 
was to adjust special halters to them, so that, as in the 
case of many horses purchased by France, it was only 
necessary, when the animal reached the other side, to 
snap two straps to his head-stalls and make him instantly 
ready to be hitched to a gun limber or a wagon of a 
transport train. 



302 



CHAPTER XXXIV 

SCOURGES THAT FOLLOW IN THE WAKE 
OF BATTLE 

THE COMMON ENEMY, DISEASE — SCOURGES OF MOD- 
ERN WARFARE — RAVAGES OF TYPHUS IN SERVIA — 
NO WORD OF COMPLAINT — AMERICA TO THE RESCUE 

IN MANY campaigns of the past, disease has slain 
its thousands where bullets and shells have killed 
hundreds, and even the twentieth century with its 
marvelous science of sanitation has not defeated the 
direful common enemies of allies and foes. Why 
disease should attack masses of men in the prime of 
life, living in the open air, and on the whole well fed 
and clothed, at first sight seems strange, but when we 
remember that modern fighting begets an intolerable 
thirst, which the soldier is naturally tempted to slake 
as best he can and when he can, at least one reason is 
not hard to find. 

All modern armies, since the striking experience of 
Japan in the Manchurian campaign, pay special 
attention to the drinking water, and with good 
results. But an irremovable source of disease remains 
in the typhus-carrying vermin, in the myriads of flies 
bred in the rotting carcases of men and horses and in 
th filth that inevitably collects around perpetually 
shifting camps and bivouacs. As everyone now knows, 

303 



SCOURGES IN WAKE OF BATTLE 

these insects are ceaseless and tireless carriers of 
infection, and it is difficult to see how, under conditions 
of war, the plague of them can be utterly wiped out. 

SCOURGES OF MODERN WARFARE 

Of the diseases which assail an army in the field, 
a few stand out so prominently that all others may 
practically be neglected. These are cholera, typhus, 
typhoid fever, dysentery, and pneumonia; and they 
have this in common, that they are all caused by 
specific bacilli. Thus cholera is the child, so to speak, 
of the dreaded vibrio, and pneumonia that of the 
pneumococcus; while typhus, typhoid and dysentery 
have each their own special microbe. The modes of 
attack are, however, different, for the pneumococcus 
can enter the organism by the nose and mouth only; 
typhoid and dysentery through the alimentary canal; 
while the way in which cholera is propagated is at 
present unknown. All have this in common, that 
while the microbes causing them are probably always 
present — that of cholera being a doubtful exception — 
they seem only to assault a subject previously weakened 
by exposure, bad food, or intemperance. 

RAVAGES OF TYPHUS IN SERVIA 

The dread aftermaths of war made their first visita- 
tions upon the Servian nation. One read with dismay 
that Belgium was later"outdone by Poland, and Poland 
seemed almost fortunate beside Servia. The account 
sent by Captain E. N. Bennett, Commissioner in 
Servia for the British Red Cross Society, of the condi- 
tions prevailing in Servian hospitals and prisoners' 
304 



SCOURGES IN WAKE OF BATTLE 

camps filled the whole world with dread. "Fires are 
needed to clear Servia of typhus, just as fires were 
needed to stop the great plague in London," reported 
Sir Thomas Lipton, who spent considerable time in 
that country. He said: 

"I met on the country roads many victims too weak 
to crawl to a hospital. Bullock-carts were gathering 
them up. Often a woman and her children were 
leading the bullocks, while in the car the husband and 
father was raving with fever. Scarcely enough people 
remain unstricken to dig graves for the dead, whose 
bodies lie exposed in the cemeteries. 

"The situation is entirely beyond the control of the 
present force, which imperatively needs all the help 
it can get — tents, hospitals, doctors, nurses, modern 
appliances, and clothing to replace the garments full 
of typhus-bearing vermin." 

His picture of the hospital at Ghevgheli, where Dr. 
James F. Donnelly, of the American Red Cross, died, 
is appalling. Sir Thomas called Dr. Donnelly one of 
the greatest heroes of the war: 

"The place is a village in a barren, uncultivated 
country, the hospital an old tobacco factory, formerly 
belonging to Abdul Hamid. In it were crowded 1,400 
persons, without blankets or mattresses, or even straw — 
men lying in the clothes in which they had lived in the 
trenches for months, clothes swarming with vermin, 
victims of different diseases, typhus, typhoid, dysen- 
tery, and smallpox were herded together. In such a 
state Dr. Donnelly found the hospital, where he had a 
force of six American doctors, twelve American nurses, 
and three Servian doctors. When I visited the hospital 

20 305 



SCOURGES IN WAKE OF BATTLE 

three of the American doctors, the three Servian 
doctors, and nine of the nurses were themselves ill. 

'^The patients were waited on by Austrian prisoners. 
The fumes of illness were unbearable. The patients 
objected to the windows being opened, and Dr. Don- 
nelly was forced to break the panes. The first thing 
Dr. Donnelly did on his arrival was to test the water, 
which he found infected. He then improvised boilers 
of oil-drums, in which to boil water for use. The 
boilers saved five hundred lives, said Dr. Donnelly. 
He also built ovens in which to bake the clothes of the 
patients, but he was not provided with proper steriliz- 
ing apparatus. 

NO WORD OF COMPLAINl 

"No braver people exist than the Servians. They 
have never a word of complaint. In one ward I saw 
a fever patient, his magnificent voice booming songs 
to cheer his comrades. Some were in a delirium, calling 
for 'mother.' 

"One source of infection is the army black bread, 
which is the only^ ration of the troops. The patients 
in the hospital receive only a loaf each, which they 
put in their bed or under their pillow. Later the 
unused loaves are bought by pedlers and are resold, 
spreading disease among the people, who are mediaeval 
in so far as sanitation is concerned. A Servian soldier 
receives a rifle, some hand-grenades, and perhaps part 
of a uniform, but otherwise looks after himself. 
n "The street-cleaning and hospital- waiting are done 
by Austrians, who are rapidly thinning from typhus 
and other diseases. 
306 



SCOURGES IN WAKE OF BATTLE 

AMERICA TO THE RESCUE 

"The best hospital in the Balkans is at Belgrade, 
under Dr. Edward W. Ryan, of the American contin- 
gent, where there are 2,900 patients. Dr. Ryan kept 
the hospital neutral during the Austrian occupation, 
and accomplished wonders diplomatically at that time. 
He is worshiped by the people. 

"Dr. Ryan says that the greatest task is to keep 
the hospital free from vermin. The typhus affects 
men the most severely. Women come next, and chil- 
dren for the most part recover. The symptoms begin 
like those of grip. The disease lasts fifteen days, with 
fever and delirium." 

In the spring of 1915, a large sanitary commission 
was organized by the American Red Cross and the 
Rockefeller Foundation, each of these organizations 
donating $25,000 to the prosecution of the work. 
The commission included a group of distinguished 
bacteriologists and physicians, among them William 
C. Gorgas, surgeon-general of the U. S. A. An initial 
supply of 10,000 anti-cholera treatments was carried 
to Servia by the commission, for there was danger not 
only of a spread of typhus but also of an outbreak of 
Asiatic cholera or some other infectious disease that 
might sweep across all Europe. Heavy indeed is the 
price of warfare. 



307 



CHAPTER XXXV 

WAR'S REPAIR SHOP: CARING FOR THE 
WOUNDED 

EFFICIENCY OF THE RED CROSS SERVICE THE 

BANDAGING CAMP THE SANITATION COMPANY 

THE HOSPITAL BARGE. 

> 

AMID THE dreadful welter of carnage and its attendant 
agony which speUs modern warfare one ray of brightness 
appears in the universal gloom in the shape of the 
highly organized efficiency of the Red Cross Service, 
which waits upon battle. Die Umschau, of BerHn, 
printed an admirable description of its activities 
from the pen of Professor Rupprecht, one of the chief 
organizers of the German Military Hospital Service, 
of which we give an abstract : 

"The stretcher-bearers of the infantry — four to each 
company — who bear the Red Cross sjrmbol on the arm, 
when a battle is on hand, gather at the end of the 
battalion (sixteen men with four stretchers) and then 
proceed to the Infantry Sanitation Car. As soon as the 
'bandaging camp' is made ready . . . they go to the 
front with stretchers and knapsacks in order to be 
ready to give aid to the wounded as soon as possible. 
Musicians and others are employed as assistant 
stretcher-bearers. These wear a red band on the 
sleeve but do not come under the provisions of the 
Geneva Treaty." 
308 



WAR'S REPAIR SHOP 



THE BANDAGING CAMP 

Similar arrangements are made for the cavalry. 
The so-called '^bandaging camp" is for the purpose of 
gathering the wounded and examining and classifying 
them. It should be both protected and accessible, 
and if possible near a water supply. At the end of a 
battle it is the duty of the troops to search trenches, 
woods, houses, etc., for the wounded, protect them 




Quicker and Easier Than Bandages: The "Tabloid" Adjustable 
Head-Dressing. 

This dressing for head-wounds in the form of a cap, can be applied in a 
few seconds, and remains comfortably in position. It can be washed, ster- 
ilized, and used repeatedly. The diagrams show the method of adjusting 
and the dressing in position. 



against plunderers and carry them to the bandaging 
camp, as also to bury the dead. 

'^At the bandaging camp the surgeons and their 
assistants must revive and examine the men and make 
them ready for transport. Operations are seldom 
practicable or necessary here. The chief concern is to 
bandage wounds of bones, joints, and arteries care- 
fully. . . . Severe hemorrhages usually stop of 
themselves, on which account it is seldom desirable 

309 



WAR'S REPAIR SHOP 



to bind the limb tightly above the wound. The wound 
itself must never be touched, washed, or probed. After 
the clothing is removed or cut away it must merely be 
covered with the contents of the bandage package." 

Every soldier carries two of these packages in a 
pocket on the lower front corner of his left coat-tail. 
Each package contains a gauze bandage enclosed in a 
waterproof cover. There is sewed to this bandage a 
gauze compress saturated with sublimate and of a red 
color. It is so arranged that the bandage can be 
taken hold of with both hands without touching the 
red compress. 

It is strongly impressed upon the stretcher-bearers 
and all assistants that cases having wounds in the 
abdomen are not transportable and must on no account 
be given food or drink; also that bleeding usually 
stops of itself. They are taught, too, that touching, 
washing, or probing the wound is injurious, and that 
only dry bandages must be placed on the wound — 
never those that are damp or impervious. 

''The wounded who are capable of marching leave 
their ammunition, except for a few cartridges, at the 
bandaging camp, are provided if need be with a simple 
protective bandage, and march first to the nearest 
^camp for the slightly wounded,' or to the nearest 
'resting-camp.' The rest of the wounded are removed 
as soon as possible directly to the field hospitals or 
lazarets. If obliged to remain for a while before 
removal they are protected by portable tents, wind- 
screens, etc. . . . If it is impossible to carry the 
wounded along in a retreat they are left in care of the 
hospital staff under the protection of the Red Cross." 
310 



WA-R'S REPAIR SHOP 



THE SANITATION COMPANY 

In case of a big battle a sanitation company remains 
near the bandaging camp. Every army corps has 
three of these companies, which, together with the 
twelve field lazarets of the corps, form a sanitation 
battalion. 

As soon as it is apparent that the troops will remain 
in one locality for some length of time the smaller 
bandaging camps or stations are supplemented by a 
chief bandaging station some distance in the rear, and 
if possible, near a highway and near houses. At this 
spot there are arranged places for the entry and exit of 
the wagons carrying the wounded, for the unloading 
of the wounded, for the dying and the dead, for cooking, 
and a '^park" for wagons and horses. 

Each field lazaret is capable of caring for two hundred 
men, but this capacity may be extended by making 
use of local aid. The supplies carried are very compre- 
hensive, including tents, straw mattresses and woolen 
blankets, lighting materials, clothing and linen, tools, 
cooking utensils, soap, writing materials, drugs and 
medical appliances, sterilization ovens, bandages, instru- 
ments, and an operating-table. As fast as possible 
the patients treated are sent home on furlough or 
removed to permanent military hospitals. The very 
perfection of this system but deepens the tragic irony 
that occasions it. 

THE HOSPITAL BARGE 

One very important development in the care for the 
wounded is the introduction of the hospital barge. 
The rivers and canals of France offer splendid oppor- 

311 



WAR'S REPAIR SHOP 



tunities for conveying wounded from point to point. 
This new method of transport was foreshadowed in an 
article in the London Times, in which the writer, in 
describing the hospital barges, said: 

"The north of France, as is well known, is exceedingly 
rich in waterways — ^rivers and canals. The four great 
rivers, the Oise, the Somme, the Sambre, and the 
Escaut (Scheldt), are connected by a network of 
canals — quiet and comfortable waterways at present 
almost free of traffic. So far as the reaching of any 
particular spot is concerned these waterways may be 
said to be ubiquitous. They extend, too, right into 
Belgium, and have connection with the coast at various 
points — for example, Ostend. Here, then, is a system 
of 'roads' for the removal of the wounded, a system 
which, if properly used, can be made to relieve greatly 
the stress of work imposed upon the ambulance motor 
cars and trains. Here also is the ideal method of 
removal. 

"The He de France is lying at present at the Quai 
de Grenelle, near the Eiffel Tower. This is a Seine 
barge of the usual size and type, blunt-nosed, heavily 
and roomily built. You enter the hold by a step- 
ladder, which is part of the hospital equipment. This 
is a large chamber not much less high from floor to 
ceiling than an ordinary room, well lighted, and ven- 
tilated by means of skylights. The walls of the hold 
have been painted white; the floor has been thoroughly 
scrubbed out for the reception of beds, of which some 
forty to fifty will be accommodated. 

"The forward portion of the barge can accommodate 
more beds, and there is no reason why a portion of it 
312 



WAR'S REPAIR SHOP 



should not be walled in and used as an operating room, 
more especially since in the bow a useful washing 
apparatus is fitted. The barge is heated by stoves, 
and a small electric plant could easily be installed. 
The barges are used in groups of four, and a small tug 
supplies the motive power. In favorable circumstances 
about fifty kilometers a day can be traveled." 

The barges employed are big, roomy barges one hun- 
dred and twenty feet long, sixteen feet broad, and ten 
feet high. Care is taken to use only fairly new and 
clean barges which have been used in the conveyance 
of timber or stone or other clean and harmless cargoes. 



313 



CHAPTER XXXVI 

WHAT WILL THE HORRORS AND ATROCI- 
TIES OF THE GREAT WAR LEAD TO? 

WAR, A REVERSAL TO THE PRIMITIVE BRUTE IN 

MAN THE SPREAD OF DEMOCRACY DECLINE OF 

THE WAR SPIRIT THE DAWN OF UNIVERSAL PEACE. 

IN THE mobilization of armies, in the appropriation 
of colossal funds and consequent imposition of intol- 
erable taxes, in the disregard of the neutrality of lesser 
nations, in the ''emergency measures" that tear apart 
a home to give its bread-winner to the reeking shambles 
— ^in all these phenomena original incentives quickly 
are forgotten, as though they had never been. 

What imperial chancellery now remembers, or now 
cares, that a sovereign's nephew and his morganatic 
wife were done to death in an obscure dependency 
upon the Adriatic shores? Their hands and steel are 
at each other's throats on that pretext, but they improve 
the occasion to settle all old scores that rancorous 
racial antagonism in an interminable blood-feud have 
created. War has thrown down the barriers of social 
restraint; it has abolished the delimitations of political 
adjustment; international decorum, propriety, all that 
is signified in the German tongue under the untrans- 
latable name of ''Sittlichkeit" are no more; landmarks 
set in place with a thankful sense of achievement and a 
pious aspiration are obliterated. 
314 



WHAT WILL THE WAR LEAD TO? 

None will deny to our heroes living, nor to those who 
after warfare rest in peace, the sublimity of their 
utmost pattern of devotion and of the sacrifice they 
made. But with all that selfless devotion implies and 
patriotism means, with all that the bugle sings or 
flaunting pennons inspire, with ail that the sight of old 
and tattered battle-flags conveys, with all that the 
histories tell, with all the exemplary careers of con- 
querors that were not ruthless and armies that sang 
psalms and nations whose quarrel was just and kings 
who laid their crowns before the throne of God in 
prayer, and their laurels in the dust of the profoundest 
self-abasement — the nature of war is not changed. '-* 

With all the Te Deums that have risen in cathedrals, 
and hosannas that were sung for conquering Caesars 
when earth and sky were shaken like a carpet with 
their welcome at the gate; with all the splendor of 
shining accoutrements of guardsmen and Uhlans and 
cuirassiers; with all the investiture of romance that 
poet and painter and even the sensitive historian have 
been able to confer upon it — war remains what it is: 
an abysmal and sickening reversion to the primitive 
brute in man. It must still be a sight "to grieve high 
heaven and make the angels mourn" that men created 
in the image of their Maker, endowed with a diviner 
instinct beyond the body's need or transient existence, 
could sink so far, and in the slough of primordial 
animality forget the very light of life and their immortal 
destiny for the sake of the mere fiction of power on 
land, sea and even in the throbbing and embattled air 
through which the prayers of women ascend like silent 
flame to God. 

315 



The World's Best Intellects 
on War 

JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU: War is the foulest fiend 
that ever vomited forth from the mouth of hell. 

THOMAS JEFFERSON: I abhor war and view it as the 
greatest scourge of mankind. 

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: There never was a good war 
or a bad peace. 

WILLIAI\i LLOYD GARRISON: My country is the 
world; my countrymen are all mankind. 

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE: The more I study the world, 
the more am I convinced of the inability of force to create 
anything durable. 

PAUL ON MARS HILL: God hath made of one blood all 
nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth. 

ANDREW CARNEGIE: We have abolished slavery from 
civilized countries, the owning of man by man. The 
next great step that the world can take is to abolish war, 
the killing of man by man. 

GEORGE WASHINGTON: My first wish is to see the 
whole world at peace, and the mhabitants of it as one 
band of brothers, striving which should most contribute 
to the happiness of mankind. 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: With malice toward none, with 
charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives 
us to see the right, let us strive * * * to do all 
which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace 
among ourselves and with all nations. 

EMANUEL ICANT: The method by which states pros- 
ecute their rights cannot under present conditions be 
a process of law, since no court exists having juris- 
diction over them, but only war. But through war, 
even if it result in victory, the question of right is not 
decided. 



316 



WHAT WILL THE WAR LEAD TO? 

THE SPREAD OF DEMOCRACY 

We are apt, in thinking of the consequences of the 
European war, to consider the readjustment of national 
boundaries as of prime importance. Such a thought 
betrays a wrong perspective, or a narrowness of vision, 
or both. Territorial definition is a small, material 
factor. The larger, spiritual considerations that affect 
all mankind are the momentous things. And probably 
of all the consequences that are evolved out of the 
horrors and atrocities of the great war, the spread of 
the democratic spirit must be the most momentous. 
Despite the fact that the ambitions of the people and 
the dynasties are in accord, the effect of the war upon 
monarchical institutions must be momentous. The 
spirit of democracy is abroad. It has practically 
abolished the British House of Lords. It has forced 
the establishment of a parliament in Russia. It is so 
active and alert in Germany that the Social Democratic 
party is the largest and most powerful political organi- 
ation in the empire. In France it overturned the 
monarchy nearly half a century ago, and is now so 
firmly established that only the wildest dreamers ever 
imagine that republican institutions can be displaced. 
It is regnant in Portugal and nearly so in Spain. A 
nation in arms, as Germany now is, will not long be 
content to remain a nation without a ministry respon- 
sible to its Parliament. The democratization of Ger- 
man institutions is inevitable after the war, whatever 
the result. The people, even in Russia, are no longer 
driven serfs. They think, they reason, and a demon- 
stration of the power of 5,000,000 men on the battle-field 
will not be lost on the patriots who wish also to demon- 

317 



WHAT WILL THE WAR LEAD TO? 

strate the power of the same number of millions in 
deciding at first hand the causes for which they will 
take up arms. Whether the kings and the emperors 
remain on their thrones matters little. Great Britain, 
though it retains the fiction of a monarchy, is as 
democratic as the United States, and its Parliament 
responds with greater precision to popular sentiment 
than the American Congress. The war means the end 
of autocracy whether the kings remain or not. 

DECLINE OF THE WAR SPIRIT 

' It is significant that the most democratic nations 
are likewise the most peace-loving. With the spread 
of democracy must come the decline of the war spirit. 
The teaching that war is a biological necessity for the 
preservation of the heroic virtues in men has met its 
fate in this war, for we have found men, whole regi- 
ments of them, who had only been in warlike training 
a few months, showing just as cool courage and just as 
stubborn fighting powers as men who had been trained 
to war from their youth. Even from the standpoint 
of effectiveness in war the war spirit is unnec- 
essary. 

And we have a right to insist that the bravery of the 
battle-line is not the highest bravery, and that the 
deliverance wrought by bayonet and shrapnel is not 
the most necessary to the welfare of humanity. The 
courage which is unmoved by the roar of great guns 
and undaunted by the gleam of advancing bayonets 
is good, but it is no better than the courage of the 
timid woman who faces death upon the operating- 
table without shrinking or complaint; and it is in 
318 



WHAT WILL THE WAR LEAD TO? 

nothing superior to the courage which, in the daily 
life of our people, takes up patiently the burden of the 
day, and in the face of poverty, sorrow, and pain, and 
bearing also the contempt of many, goes forward 
without bitterness and even with cheerfulness to the 
end of the journey, faithful unto death. 

THE DAWN OF UNIVERSAL PEACE 

Finally, as the spirit of democracy rises and the 
spirit of war declines, the vision of universal peace 
begins to crystallize. While to many it may seem that 
this must always remain a vision, the real seers of the 
world do not doubt that, when the awful conflict in 
Europe is ended, the warring nations, viewing their 
dead and their devastated countries, will welcome a 
plan which promises an end of such disasters. The 
practicability and feasibility of the idea of an inter- 
national tribunal is shown by the successful operation 
of the American Constitutional Courts of Arbitration, 
which have settled controversies between the states, 
and by the so-called general arbitration treaties to 
submit justiciable disputes to arbitration. And if an 
international arbitration court is feasible, an inter- 
national police, to give force to the decrees of the 
tribunal, is also feasible. We have only to come to 
believe this and the plan itself can be formulated. 
All great achievement in the world has been a matter 
of great faith. 

The hope of humanitarianism and civilization rests 
on the very enormity of the present calamity. The 
horrors and atrocities of the war are so great, its waste 
and devastation so enormous, its scars so deep, that 

319 



WHAT WILL THE WAR LEAD TO? 

no one who is touched by it can want war again. The 
disaster is so overwhelming that peace when it comes 
must be lasting. 



* The 32 pages of illustrations contained in this book are not included in 
the paging. Adding these 32 jjages to the 320 pages of the text makes a 
total of 352 pages. 



352^ 



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